Food brings people together. From Nigeria to Ireland to Canada, food and creating community have been the driving force behind everything Iyabo Olaniyan does.
Iyabo grew up in the “palace life,” in Nigeria, where sharing food was how her family showed leadership and love for their people. Her mother, Princess Apostolic Mother Ruth, taught Iyabo to cook, and to share her love of food. Iyabo learned to throw large banquets for 30 to 50 people at a time; she never quite got the knack of cooking just for herself or her immediate family. She says, “My children know when I cook a pot of jollof rice, they’ll say we know that mommy is giving them away.”
Iyabo hosts and cooks large meals for the homeless, and provides African donuts to her church, schools and to the food bank.
On social media her community writes, “Our African queen is calling— Jam!” Together, they rent out Roberts Creek Hall, bring the people, and play music. Iyabo wants everyone to feel that when she shows up with food, “the solution has come.”
Eventually, this fed into her participation with Black History Month celebrations. Her husband, Prince Olabisi Amao, met one of the organizers on a ferry and they asked him to prepare a speech on cultural diversity. They asked if he knew anyone who could prepare traditional African dishes. As it happened, he knew the perfect person.
Princess Iaybo Olaniyan was born in 1965, the granddaughter of King Emmanuel Oyetunde Mogbesola II, king of the Ejigbo Local Government Area in Nigeria. Iyabo bears ritual scars along her cheekbones which identify the lineage she belongs to, “[If we are taken captive as children], the mark signifies who you are…you will know she's from my village. You will know she's my DNA. She's my sister. She's my sibling.” It will prevent accidentally marrying within the same bloodline.
Iyabo trained as a nurse (1987–1990) and as a midwife (1991–1992) at Baptist Medical Centre, and married Olabisi in August 1992. She owned Solid Foundation Clinic in Ogun State, which was sold in 2004.
As Nigeria’s economy began to collapse in the late ’90s, the couple looked for somewhere more stable to raise their family. Iyabo thought, “The way we grow up with all the delays [after initial education] we experienced, we don’t want our children to experience.”
Their first choice was the U.S., but they experienced setbacks including the theft of money they had
paid for visas. While they were waiting, Olabisi, a nurse-psychiatrist with a PhD in community health and addiction, was recruited by the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland.
Olabisi immigrated to Dublin in 2002, followed by Iyabo and the children in February of 2004. There, Iyabo worked in a facility to care for the elderly and completed a masters in gerontological nursing from the Royal College of Surgeons.
Over the next decade, they watched as Ireland slid slowly into a recession. Fearing that the same thing that had forced them to leave Nigeria was happening again, they prepared to move.
They were still interested in the U.S., and Olabisi had a job lined up in Maryland. However, the recent spike of mass shootings, and the U.S.’s continued refusal to enact any gun reform measures, convinced them that it was not a safe environment for their children. Iyabo suggested Canada, though they knew nothing about it.
Meanwhile, their fourth and final child was born, and the family was granted Irish citizenship. This enabled them to travel to Canada on their Irish passports. In 2013, Olabisi visited friends in Calgary, to see what Canada was like. While there, he saw a job posting at Sumac Place in Gibsons. It was only when he asked his hosts how to get here, and they told him he would need another plane ticket, that he came to fully appreciate just how vast Canada really is!
He made it to the Coast and got the job. His family soon followed. Though Dublin had been a bitterly cold shock after her Nigerian homeland, Iyabo was pleasantly surprised by the weather of the Coast. “Is this Canada a place that exists in the planet? We came in June with the breeze [off the ocean] and the sun was shining and I was saying, wow, [it was like] we are going back home [to Nigeria] because we like it.”
But it wasn’t all fine weather. Iyabo was shocked that social isolation was a bigger problem here, creating depression and addiction in turn. There’s a real dichotomy between a community that welcomes newcomers with open arms, and a culture that isolates people, “to die inside their home without anybody knowing, unless something is smelling around.”
In response, Iyabo is committed to community outreach. She hosts families new to the Coast, for weeks and months at a time until they find their feet. She says if people ask her for food, and she has no food, then she regrets that she did not cook that day.
However, it is a challenge to source the right ingredients, to ensure her food is as delicious and authentic as possible. The closest African spice shops are in Surrey, as there isn’t enough demand on the Coast. When freshness and origin matter most, she will ship directly from Nigeria. This can involve advanced planning of several months.
A few years after her family arrived on the Coast, they found their true home with Calvary Baptist Church. She told them, “I will not lock my door. I want us to go beyond church and culture. I want you to see me as one of you, and I want to find a sister and a family in you because my family are far away.”
Building community is also important to Iyabo as a stepping stone for the next generation. Her children are a blend of Canadian and African cultures, and know how to show respect for members of both communities. She is very proud of her four children, whose specialties and advanced degrees run the gauntlet.
“We’ve brought our skills, our talent, our love…so we can integrate and bond together and participate in growing this community. They said it takes a community to raise a kid. So we participate together without colour, race, gender, ethnicity, but just seeing the human being that are loaded with talent. So, when we allow [the child] to unfold, then the community will be blessed.”
Iyabo does not charge for her events, or the food she serves, relying on generous donations, which she uses to cater for the less privileged in the African community. She is the CEO of DepoDebo Charity Foundation Service.
Iyabo periodically cooks for events at Gibsons Public Market; see gibsonspublicmarket.com for info on when the next one will be held.
