Ahmed Yahaya – Joe
Barrister Godwin Ajala, Ignatius Udo Adanga and Olabisi Shadie Layeni-Yee are the only officially recognized Americans of Nigerian extraction that are mentioned as victims of September 11, 2001.
There is however a report that 50 others that fell with the Twin Towers that were working under the radar of Immigration. Irrespective, their legal status at the Big Apple they left our shores to get a slice of the American pie. None of them had any issues with the alleged perpetuators of the attacks.
The 62-year-old Adanga was an official of the New York Metropolitan Transport Council with offices at the Twin Towerz had left Nigeria as a young man passing through Liberia then Germany before arriving the God’s Own Country in 1981. Olabisi, a lady was a rising managerial executive. She managed to call her mum, Mrs. Edith Layeni as the first plane hit Tower 1 at exactly 8.46 am.
“Ajala was born in 1968. From Ihenta, in Ebonyi State as an adult, Ajala became a lawyer in Nigeria. His family, including his wife, Victoria, and their three children, Onyinyechi, 7, Uchechukwu, 5, and Ugochi, 1, lived in Ihenta. In 1995, Ajala emigrated to the United States to make a better life for himself and his family.
When he first arrived in the U.S Ajala bounced between poorly paid jobs but eventually obtained a steady position as a security guard or Access Control Officer at the New York World Trade Center Towers at the Concourse (ground floor) level. In this position, Ajala rode elevators and walked floors of the 110-story tower at Two World Trade Center, helping secure the building and attending to small emergencies.
Ajala worked in this position while preparing to take the New York State Bar Exam with plans to reunite his family in the U.S. once he had passed the exam. Friends described him as working from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. as a security guard and then coming home to study for another 6 to 8 hours every day.
Despite his efforts, Ajala never achieved his goals of becoming a lawyer in the United States and bringing his family to the U.S. Nor do we know if he would have ever been able to achieve these goals since, having little money, he was unable to attend law school in the U.S., and instead took more affordable specialized prep courses for the New York Bar Exam. He failed the exam three times.
Yet on the day of September 11, 2001, Ajala demonstrated his self-sacrificing character when, instead of running to save his own life, he helped to evacuate thousands of people from a street-level security post inside the lobby of Two World Trade Center when the second plane hit the building.
He held the door open for people running out, and repeatedly went back inside to guide more people out of the blazing structure. Exhausted after helping to guide many out of the attacked building, Ajala reportedly first went into a coma and died the following Sunday.”
Cappa & D’Alberto was established by Pietro Cappa and Viginio D’Alberto in 1932 on Lagos Island. However, Grato Cappa, brother of Pietro later founded G. Cappa in 1935. They had all sailed from Italy to our clime against the backdrop of the search for opportunity perhaps no different from the same reasons why Ajala, Adanga and Layeni-Yee emigrated.
The Cappa brothers erected the Holy Cross Cathedral in 1939. 50 years later their legacy upgraded where on May 28, 1988 the enigmatic General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida led Nigeria’s upper echelons of the Muslim faithful in prayers that marked the reopening of the Lagos Central Mosque along the main artery of Nnamdi Azikiwe Street.
The mosque was originally designed and built after a rigorous selection process by a Lagos civil engineer, George Debayo Agbebi – a Christian in 1908.
Nearby along Martins Street is the well-preserved iconic Mohammed Shitta Bey (Oluwu Pupa) Mosque emblazoned with Brazilian motifs built by Joao Baptista da Costa another Christian. It was commissioned on July 4, 1894 at a colorful ceremony when Bey was also installed as the first, “Seriki Musulmi” of Lagos. The proceedings were presided by Lagos governor, Sir Gilbert Carter (1824-1895)
Less than a fortnight after his successful outing in Lagos as an acting Imam of sorts, IBB ordered the immediate release of 85 persons previously held at the Kaduna State Police Command for shouting obscenities at him in Sultan Bello Mosque.
And as we shall later see, IBB stood in a place of prominence on Lagos Island exactly 120 years after the death of another son of the Niger, Oshodi Tapa (1800-1868)
The Lagos and later Sultan Bello Mosque upgrades were chiefly financed by the Baba Adinni of Lagos, Alhaji Abdulwahab Iyanda Folawiyo, CON (1928-2008) who is flanked in the attached 33-year-old photograph by General Sani Abacha and Air Marshal Ibrahim Alfa.
Interestingly, a few months down the line in February, 1989 at the sidelines of Emperor Hirohito’s funeral in Japan, IBB met with his Israeli counterpart, Chaim Herzog to iron out issues with a view to restoring full diplomatic relations between our countries that were severed in 1973 by General Yakubu Gowon. The optics of that symbolic meeting was an attempt by IBB to politically “balance the equation” of Nigeria’s entry into OIC.
Farooq Kperogi’s, “Why Islam is different in Yorubaland and Hausaland” is a must read in understanding how and why the South West is more religiouly “accomodationist” than the North. Is the relative economic backwardness of Arewa integral to this?
According to Bashorun J.K. Randle, “just as Christians donated generously to the building of mosques, in similar fashion Muslims contributed to the building of churches and cathedrals in cash and kind and mostly lands,” adding, “The late Alhaji L.B Agusto was Chief Imam of Lagos and that did not preclude him from being the lawyer to the Catholic Diocese of Lagos under Archbishop Leo Taylor. It was Alhaji Jubril Martins, another Muslim, that succeeded him as the church’s counsel.”
The American-born Leo Taylor established the St. Gregory’s College, Obalande in 1928. The Chief Imamship of Lagos has been rotated between the Nola, Ibrahim and Salu families of Isale Eko since the days of the Man Friday, Oshodi Tapa who was indentured to Oba Osinlokun;
“Oshodi family accounts note that when Tapa was a little boy about to be loaded onto a Portuguese ship bound for the Americas, he escaped and sought refuge in Oba Osinlokun’s palace. The name Tapa is a reference to the Nupe people.
He and another slave (Dada Antonio) were sent by Oba Osilokun to Brazil to learn Portuguese, acquire the necessary commercial and cultural knowledge to conduct trade on behalf of the Oba and to collect duties from Portuguese slave traders. After serving Osilokun, Oshodi Tapa became a key adviser and military chief of Oba Kosoko.
Oshodi Tapa played a significant role in putting up a spirited defense to the British invasion of Lagos in November and December 1851. After the British defeated Kosoko, Oshodi Tapa fled with Kosoko to Epe where he remained a Kosoko ally.
Tapa returned to Lagos along with Kosoko in 1862. He settled in the Epetedo area close to the Oba’s palace. He was given the traditional title of Oloja of Ereko and during this period became allied with Governor John Hawley Glover who appreciated Tapa’s skills, contacts, and political experience and leveraged his relationship with Tapa to his advantage as Governor of Lagos. Glover reportedly consulted Oshodi Tapa before implementing any new public projects and he eventually became an emissary of Glover’s government.”
We are all, Children of Abraham.
