The Deep Calls Unto the Deep
Prologue to the Intellectual Roundtable Book
By
Seye Adetunmbi
Mind is a powerful part of the human being, the creature of God. As defined in the dictionary, mind is "the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel.” It is indeed the faculty of consciousness and thought. Mind is so powerful that its capacity to explore could be limitless. Essentially, every rational mortal has a mind with a productive wandering scope beyond imagination. What is of essence is how individual and collective minds have been applied in the situations around them for the good of their constituencies, communities and the larger society. The resourcefulness of a productively engaged fruitful-mind can manifest in various forms that could be imagined. All other things being equal, a tamed itinerant resourceful mind is bound to be a blessing to mankind if applied to laudable purpose-driven initiatives.
Over the years and up till now, my humble fruitful mind continues to explore the world around me and interrogate arising various issues. Modestly, my God given perspicacious mind had been processing various thoughts as they came and at some points, when the urge could not be resisted, I put my inferences, feelings and views down in writing. Amazingly, the writings got voluminous which informed my decision to write my first book. Initially, I thought it was going to be a one-off book and decided to put all my essays on a wide range of subjects in one edition then, and structured the contents into sections with similar subject matter in each section and gave the book the title of Mindset. Yes, because the book is a product of a positively wandering productive-mind. Along the line, it crossed my mind again that there may be a need to write more books in future and people who see my work may want me to help out in publishing the products of their peripatetic minds too. There and then, I decided to register a business name to develop commerce around my passion of publishing activities.
As the thoughts ran through my mind, I came to the conclusion to give the name Mindscope, for the company. This was in order to underscore the power of the scope of mind that inspired my writings, in the birthing of the business initiative. I added Africa to the business name because it is my root and the mind exploration is about unearthing lasting values in Africa for the benefit of the contemporary global world for the benefit of mankind. On July 20, in 2012, Mindscope Africa was registered by the Company Affairs Commission in Nigeria. On the 21st of July in 2012, Mindset was formally published by Mindscope Africa and the book was presented to the public to mark my 50th birthday anniversary. It has been one book or the order since then. 13 years after, this is my 14th published book and it is dedicated to one of my prominent passions, intellectual roundtable initiatives.
I am a respecter of intellectuals, and I enjoy the company of cerebral people. I am very conscious of the fact that we have a huge knowledgeable community out there that can be explored for the good of the larger society if properly harnessed. Consequently, I often lookout for opportunities to bring together as many intellectuals as possible to a roundtable, be it within my indigenous communities, among professional colleagues or at socio-political interactive levels. Primarily, it is to provide a platform for the all ranks of intellectuals to air their views dispassionately without any fear of gagging and share their tested knowledge in a well-defined public forum for the people in government to tap from informed thoughts for the benefit of the majority at all tiers of government.
Internet which has turned the whole world to a global community has helped a great deal in realising my dreams on the various intellectual forums that I have been able to initiate in the past 20 years. This made it possible to productively yoke the resourceful thoughts of the various intellectuals, online and real-time across the globe with ease. This solves to a great extent, the challenge of facilitating actual physical meetings of the various participants scattered all over the world in a physical roundtable conference.
On the 6th of March in 2005, the inspiration to convene my first intellectual roundtable manifested with the debut of Ekitipanupo Indigenous Intellectual Forum for the benefit of my Jerusalem, Ekiti-State of Nigeria. The socio-political group marked 20th anniversary on 6/3/2025 with a virtual conference. Three years after unveiling Ekitipanupo forum, the intellectual roundtable for my professional community was initiated. With all humility, on August 15th 2008, I convened Capital Market Roundtable in Nigeria. On the 27th of June in 2016, I convened Yorubapanupo. Subsequent to the developments in Ekiti-State politics which prompted my involvement beyond a passing interest, I initiated Atokeibeirosi Intellectual Roundtable and deliberations started on the 1st of March in 2021. Atokeibeiro Forum has since been pitched around national and global issues.
All the three seminal platforms have attracted a wide range of accomplished brilliant intellectuals who interrogate various contemporary issues on mankind online and realtime. Some of the robust debates in the various intellectual roundtables were so rich that it became imperative for the highlights to be documented for posterity and wider access to the reading public. There is a legacy book already on Ekitipanupo Forum which I published in 2015 to mark the 10th anniversary of the indigenous intellectual roundtable. Also, a section in my book, Financial Intermediation: Operations and Practice captured some of the best moments in the capital market roundtable. Likewise, I published a booklet on Atokeibeirosi as a school of thought in 2021. All the books are available on Amazon. Intellectual engagements in all the roundtables are ongoing which has caused me to dedicate this book strictly for an update on the already published books.
This book therefore brings to fore some of the best moments in the three intellectual roundtables, that are yet to be accessible to the public. More importantly, it is in my nature to collate all my intellectual comments and writings published online, and make them available in a book for the benefit of those who may wish to have a copy. Interestingly, the first port of call for my articles and essays are the intellectual roundtables. As matter of fact, some of my articles were inspired by the deliberations in the referred intellectual roundtables. This book therefore, contains my recent articles that are yet to be published in a book.
The book has 26 chapters broken into 6 sections. Section One defines intellectual roundtable and the characteristic features with an overview on the four intellectual roundtables that I have convened till date. Section 2 contains interrogative articles on the political leadership in Nigeria while sections 3, 4 and 5 showcased best moments in Ekitipanupo Forum, Capital Market Roundtable and Atokeibeirosi Initiative. A robust debate on Afenifere and highlights of the timeless accomplishments of Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola were well captured in two chapters of the book. Likewise, there is a chapter onnthe intellectual input of the capital market roundtable to the national economic council. The last section contains my latest series of random paeans on worthy people including Queen Elizabeth II.
Let me use this opportunity to formally appreciate once more, everyone who responded to my request to join the various intellectual forums that I humbly convened over the years. “Deep calleth unto deep” Psalm 42.7. You heeded the call to come on board for us to think and reason together. Thank you all for believing. Without you, this book would not be published. In all, this is yet another unique ideological book of an ideologue, laced with some vintage pictures which would make reading of the book quite refreshing. It is a must have distinct corpus, for those who collect good books in their library.
You can get your copy through
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FMDWD927
or
https://a.co/d/dTGJm04
