Alaba Lawson Quotes

No. My parents were disciplinarians. If my father asked any of us to recite any verse of the Bible and he or she fumbled, he or she got spanked. Again, any of us could be asked to handle the morning devotion and such a person should not mess up or else… There was a cable nearby to beat sense into your brain. We were well trained, most especially in the fear of God.

I got into trouble each time I took my mother’s clothes and wore them for a photo shoot. I would have poured perfumes on the clothes and my mother would get to know. She would then report me to my father, who would use cable to beat me. You know my father worked with the ECN and he did about two years with the National Electric Power Authority before he retired, so he had cables to beat anyone of us that misbehaved.

I was not troublesome but I stood for my right and asked for it. No other student could cheat me and I never gave anyone the chance to cheat. No one could take me for granted.

She never used the cane, but she had another way of doing this. Her countenance when anyone misbehaved was more potent than the cane. Once her countenance changed, one got the message.

I attended St. James’s African Church School, Idi Ape, Abeokuta between 1957 and 1962. Before that time, my father enrolled his children in a kindergarten school founded by a Sierra Leonean woman who we called Mama Saro. All she taught us were bible verses and we crammed them.

There was nothing peculiar about my birth, at least as far as I know.

I was not born with any silver spoon. My father, late Pa Emmanuel Abiona Jiboku alias Jiboku Tannatanna was an electrical technician with the old Electric Company of Nigeria for 42 years. And my mother, late Ruth Olabisi Aina Jiboku(nee Aderupoko- Coker) of the famous Itesi area of Abeokuta was a trader.