THE STORY OF BANJO

On October 10th 1964, during the civil war that lasted almost seven days before that day, Mrs. Ajayi had reached her estimated delivery date and had her water broken with no one around and her husband, Mr. Ajayi Philips Adebanjo recently recruited for the war. She said to herself, “What must be done must be done”. Mrs Ajayi Princess Adeyemi, a young and very beautiful girl in her early twenties whom most people around her admired for her resilience in anything she did right from her teenage years. At that point in her life, she felt that she must do the impossible. It was around 2pm that day, her labor began. Mrs Ajayi, in deep stress due to the act of delivery and the sound of gunshots in the air, didn’t realize that her baby was in an incomplete breech position. Her labor lasted for hours that day with her all by herself courageously trying to do the impossible. From a few kilometers away from the house, her younger sister Ms. Muyiwa, who had gone into town to sell her goods and purchase some food from the market, returned to hearing the noise of her elder sister in distress, and hastened up to see what was happening. It was her sister, Mrs Ajayi, in labor, with sweat all over her body and blood in her privates with the buttocks of the baby halfway out. She [Muyiwa] quickly helped to calm her and assist her in the delivery. Around the 11th hour, the baby miraculously came out crying. It’s a boy, Muyiwa, screaming with smiles and tears all over her face to her sister. Now Mrs. Ajayi took one good look at her baby wearing a very big smile on her face and slowly gave up the ghost due to some complications she had during the labor. Her sister Muyiwa, in complete shock and a state of total confusion, tried all she could to bring her back to life, but Mrs. Ajayi was gone. There were mixed feelings in the air at that moment. Muyiwa took the baby, wrapped him in a neat wrapper and named him Abiodun, which means “born during a war”. In full, she named her nephew Ajayi Abiodun Adebanjo Jr.