Some people are specially created. Chief Ayo Adebanjo is no doubt, one of them. The ebony of a man will never look his age. Essentially, God has blessed him with super and excellent health. As a lawyer, he falls within the age group and stature of people that, like them, becoming a SAN would have been very easy when the award was still new and fresh. But like Chief Alao Aka Bashorun, another comrade, he never allows things like that get into his head.
Therefore, as he turns 90, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, an elder statesman and one of the leading voices in South West, evokes a rare combination of critical approval and public affection — love, even. It’s probably because he is audacious in his simplicity and brilliant in his business exploits.
At 90 years of age, the Afenifere idol projects even greater charm. He ducks your compliments, absorbs your indelicate questions, jabs back with interest in you and never appears tired of the exchange; he is the middleweight champion of charm. His best punch however, is his self-awareness. Nine decades on, his personal story demonstrates that strength is built through struggle and hardship, and he shares that strength with tremendous compassion and empathy.
Relaying his own experiences, he has personally touched the lives of very many others who have had to confront their own challenges. A champion of social justice here and abroad and now even, Ayo is as much a business titan and quintessential rock of his family: a loving husband, father, brother and uncle. He’s a man of great faith and character and financial wherewithal.
Yes, it is enlightening to be of the same decade as Chief Adebanjo. That is because his life unfurls like the proverbial whirlwind writing on the sands of time, it reads like inscriptions teaching us all that life is ephemeral and it’s only the good deeds that lasts. Come Tuesday, April 3, according to Thisday, his autobiography, ‘TELLING IT AS IT IS’, would be launched at Harbour Point, Victoria Island, Lagos. It promises to be a day in history.