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

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.

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.

I don’t have anything called sad day and I don’t pray for anyone to have a sad day. But there was a day I felt the grace and faithfulness of Jehovah God in my school, when a three-year-old girl swallowed a 5 kobo coin many years ago.