I am not sure I can get tired of the amusement from the story of Prince Abduljabbar Bolasodun Ajibola's response to the poser by a teacher while he was a student at the Baptist Day School, Owu in Abeokuta. It was a new class and the teacher, apparently trying to get used to his pupils asked each one of them the father's occupation. The previous respondents answered farming, trading, teaching etc. When it was the turn of Bolasodun whose father was then the reigning Olowu of Owu Abeokuta, Oba Abdusalam Ajibola Gbadela II (1949-1972), Prince Bolasodun simply took a cue from his classmates and answered Kinging (a reference to his father being a King).

My last encounter with the debonair prince was 2006 at the 70th birthday Thanksgiving of my former Chairman, Chief Ernest Adegunle Shonekan GCFR at the Lagos Cathedral, Marina. On that occasion, I sat directly behind Prince Ajibola and I found myself chuckling throughout the service at the Kinging response.

Prince Ajibola came into my consciousness in 1984 when he became the NBA president before IBB made him the Attorney General the following year. His trademark bowtie attracted him to me and that was the image etched in my memory until I met him at the Shonekan event in 2006, for the first time without the bowtie but in Adire Agbada. I couldn't and wouldn't have recognized him if he wasn't introduced on that occasion. Again, I never knew Prince Ajibola was a Muslim until 2005, when he established his Crescent University, Abeokuta. He made his mark in the bar, the bench, the arbitration, Islamic propagation, academic and community service.

Prince passed on earlier today at the age of 89, according to the family.

May Allah grant him Aljanah Firdaos.