Why Father Held A 3-Day Naming Ceremony For Me In 1950

By Snr. Chief ‘Lekan Alabi

73 years ago today, (Wednesday, October 25, 1950), Mother, Mama Mopelola Abeje, went into an excruciating labour at our Ile Ekerin Ajengbe Chieftaincy Family home, SW1/131, Isale-Osi Area, Ibadan.

She didn’t deliver me until the night of Friday, October 27, 1950!

Both Mother and innocent me, her first child, almost died, but for God, prayers and my paternal grandmother’s older sister, the late Mama Adeola Durodola, alias “Iya Alaro” in particular.

Mama Adeola, was known and called “Iya Alaro”, because of her adire (batik) business, I was told, became fidgety when Mother was almost losing her strength and breath, on the second day of going into a painful labour, without the expected cry, or is it yell, of her new baby.

It was Iya Alaro who commanded her younger sister, my grandmother, Mama Asma’u Odunola Alabi, to pack the necessary belongings of my labouring mother, Mama Mopelola, and off they carried her to Iya Alaro’s husband’s house, Ile Tuntun, SW1/60, Oke-Koto, Gaa, Isale-Osi, Ibadan.

At long last, I was delivered at Ile Tuntun on Friday, October 27, 1950. Thank God.
Elderly readers will remember the spectacular news on Saturday, August 6, 1988, of the mystery corpse that hadn’t decompose, 18 years after burial, in Isale-Osi Area of Ibadan.

That mystery corpse was my paternal uncle (Ibadans call it “Baba mi re”) Pa Haroun Durodola, in whose home I was born.

Pa Durodola was an extremely handsome, wealthy trader in industrial machines and philanthropist.

Father, the late Pa AbdulRahim Oladosu Alabi, alias “RIGHT TIME” told me, when I was a child, that he organised the lavish 3-day (Friday, 3rd to Sunday, 5th, November, 1950) naming party for me, at which Yusufu Olatunji (Baba l’Egba) and his Sakara band played, as a form of thanksgiving for Mother’s survival of her 2-day excruciating labour pains.

The late heavyweight boxing legend, Muhammad Ali, in his blockbuster autobiography, “THE GREATEST” wrote that he (Ali) was delivered, or rather was forced out of his mother’s womb, by medical doctors using forceps, at the Louisville, Kentucky USA hospital, as his mother was almost going out of breath on the day Ali was born. Lucky mum and son.

I have, since my 40th birthday on October 27, 1990, at which Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey-Fabiyi, MFR, and his band were contracted to play, being towing Father’s line, established in 1950.

Little wonder, nine bands were lined up to play at my 70th birthday party on October 27, 2020, but the outbreak of the deadly COVID-19 epidemic scattered that plan.

As these dire times call for caution and care, there won’t be any ‘fire’ and cooking on Friday, October 27, 2023, my 73rd birthday.

We put our trust in God that, come October 27, 2025, my landmark 75th birthday, we shall roll out the drums for celebration. Amen.

*Snr. Chief ‘Lekan Alabi is the Maye of Olubadan of Ibadanland.