Day Bola Ajibola clocked 83
By Kemi Kasumu, General Editor, and Kehinde Bashir
His Crescent University, with enrollment of students from virtually all states of Nigeria, has produced first class graduates both in the ICT, accounting and other disciplines, who moved on to universities abroad and still emerged with distinctions in their post-graduate programmes. All these are keeping Prince Bola Ajibola, SAN, CFR, KBE, LL.B. BL. FCI, NAILS, LL.D comfortable that he says, “in the life of this world, we have been blessed by Allah, what is left now is to work assiduously to see the face of the Lord with goodness in Al-Jannah in the hereafter.”
Prince Abdul-Jabbar Bolasodun Adesunmbo Ajibola, popularly called Bola Ajibola (SAN) clocked 83 on Wednesday March 22, 2017. He was born on Thursday March 22, 1934 to the household of a colonial government’s award carrying Inspector of Police who was drafted from Lagos to become a prominent king in the Egba Federation in 1949, Oba Gbadela Ajibola. His Majesty Oba Gbadela Ajibola ruled between 1949 through 1972 as the Olowu and Paramount Ruler of Owu Kingdom, Abeokuta, in the Ogun State capital.
One notable point about the place of Ajibola in Nigeria and world history is that, his father not only received Queen of England at his time but also Oba Gbadela Ajibola was one of the four major kings that ruled one community that Abeokuta is, as a federation, which late
r, arguably however, became the archetype for the Federal Republic that Nigeria later became. It should also not be far from mind that Abeokuta where Bola Ajibola’s father ruled as great Olowu of Owu was the first point of call for the White when they came in the early 1800s thereby making it a capital of pre-independent Nigeria with first Church in the country located there.
It should be noted that Olowu Gbadela, Bola Ajibola’s father was a devoted Muslim of very highly impeccable character so much that when the missionary school refused his son, Bolasodun to be admitted into early school because of his name “Abdul-Jabbar” signposting him as Muslim, the king, who himself had earlier received honour from the colonial government as best Inspect of Police in Lagos before he became the Olowu, decided that he would rather make him stay at home until he would get a better option. His son however got admission when Abdul-Jabbar was removed from his names without chance by the king to insert a missionary name in what he bore on school register and Bolasodun became the classmate of the man who today is Olowu of Owu kingdom, Oba Olusanya Adegboyega Dosunmu, OON, Fta, in a school that former President Olusegun Obasanjo also attended and the trio have moved through the prestigious Baptist Boys High School (BBHS) Abeokuta on together from then till now.
No more news that Olusegun Obasanjo later became commissioned military officer, General Officer Commanding in the Army, big player in the civil war, Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters to late Head of State General Murtala Muhammed, himself substantive Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and, 20 years after, Obasanjo became elected President of the Federal Republic and remained relevant till today in national and international politics. Bola Ajibola’s childhood friend he is.
Prince Bola Ajibola (SAN), powered by the encouragement and spiritual guidance provided by his father, moved to London and returned as a Lawyer. He once told a Vanguard’s journalist, Bashir Adefaka, story of some of the academic struggles he passed through to make it in life tagged, “My Golden Nights.” Those nights are held closer to Bola Ajibola and whenever he talks about them, the very highly amiable octogenarian’s countenance changes.
“During our time, for one to be there, I mean to make it, one must work very, very hard. As a matter of fact, one of the very important aspects of my life is that, I hold dearly to what I call “My Golden Nights.” In fact, on that particular topic I have started to put down my life history. It is very, very encouraging to see how those nights led to the successes that I have achieved,” Ajibola told a Lagos journalist, Bashir Adefaka in the Vanguard interview with Bola Ajibola in 2009.
Ever since then, Bola Ajibola – first President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) – has become anything that success is called in the life of this world. He then thought deeply within himself that having achieved the world it would be senseless, useless and hopeless to lose the sight of the next world that is called in his religious parlance as Yaomal Akhira. The SAN father of SAN (Segun Ajibola) and of many lawyers including Zakariyau Ademola Ajibola and Akin Haroon Ajibola then retired home in Abeokuta into a continental organisation he established while he was representing Nigeria as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom called the Islamic Movement for Africa (IMA), that was after his foray in the World Court at The Hague. Upon return from UK he faced IMA squarely establishing crèche, secondary and peaked the education intervention with the Crescent University Abeokuta (CUAB), a life circle that he describes as the only way to achieve, successfully, helping train future leaders that will not only graduate as academically sound but also morally excellent with the fear of God. He added that the direct opposite of graduates of this nature is better known as brilliant beasts no matter how academically sound they are without also being morally upright and having the fear of God at hearts.
He then moved on to build a mosque within the premises of IMA, called Mosjid Al-Jabbar, which he describes all the times as “my heart desire made possible by God.” Today, IMA has continued to make its intervention in virtually all aspects of life that affect directly or indirectly every human life. He built a hospital that has been reported never having recorded death case since establishment. Bola Ajibola also has an intervention that he has done in agriculture providing not only crops for food security but also making to be readily available in large quantity plants used for health service delivery, for example, Moringa.
His Crescent University, with enrollment of students from virtually all states of Nigeria, has produced first class graduates both in the ICT, accounting and other disciplines, who moved on to universities abroad and still emerged with distinctions in their post-graduate programmes. All these are keeping Prince Bola Ajibola, SAN, CFR, KBE, LL.B. BL. FCI, NAILS, LL.D comfortable that he says, “in the life of this world, we have been blessed by Allah, what is left now is to work assiduously to see the face of the Lord with goodness in Al-Jannah in the hereafter.”
All these put together, it appears, are reasons Ajibola would be celebrated all days by people within and outside Nigeria. It was part of the reason the crème de la crème in the society gathered, on Wednesday March 22, 2017 in the Bola Ajibola Auditorium, Crescent University Abeokuta main campus, to celebrate the man who has seen life in its entirety and has only retired to be more involved in services to God and betterment of humanity, on his 83rd birthday anniversary now christened Crescent University Founder’s Day Annual Lecture.
On ground to celebrate and honour him were Deputy President-General (South), Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Alhaji (Dr.) Sakariyau Olayiwola Babalola, OON, Secretary-General, Muslim Ummah of South West Nigeria (MUSWEN), Professor D. S. Noibi, Oba Rilwan Babatunde Akinolu I of Lagos ably represented by three important white cap chiefs from his kingdom, Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission(NUC), Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun ably represented by one of his commissioner with a letter from the governor which Ajibola described as a great letter he had never received in a long time, former Vice Chancellor, Crescent University Abeokuta (CUAB), Professor Kehinde Okeleye and a University of Ibadan don, Dr. Abdul-Lateef Oluwole Abass, who was guest lecturer at the Founder’s Day Annual Lecture among many others. The sitting Vice Chancellor, Professor Ibraheem Gbajabiamila was on ground as host.
