EARLY YEARS
January 17, 2021
by Nike Awosika
ADENIJI AKINBOYEJO ADARALEGBE JUNIOR was born to the family of late Professor Adeniji and Mrs. Ebunoluwa Rosemarie Adaralegbe. His paternal grandfather was a direct descendant of the Oyiyo Ruling House of Ijero Ekiti, Ekiti State while his late mother was an indigene of Ondo town, Ondo State. Adeniji was born in St John’s Episcopal Hospital, Queens, New York on 31st July 1968 on the eve of his father’s successful defense of his PhD Thesis in New York University. He was given the name “Akinboyejo” in commemoration of this happy occasion. Buoyed by the popular Black American culture of that time that saw black American male offsprings like Martin Luther King Jnr. and many others, being named after their fathers, his father named his son “Adeniji Junior.” “Junior”, as he would come to be popularly known from infancy was the fifth child out of seven children of Professor and Mrs Adaralegbe. He had two brothers and four sisters.
His father joined the then University of Ife(now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, in present day Osun State, South Western Nigeria, in the late 1960s after completing his studies and his family relocated from New York, USA to the University staff quarters in Ile-Ife. The period coincided with the University’s movement from Ibadan, its temporary site to Ile-Ife, its permanent site, widely adjudged as one of the most beautiful university campuses at that time. It was in Ife campus that Junior thrived and grew into a healthy, beautiful, sociable, and very gregarious child. His older siblings remember him to be the kid brother who could not be separated from sucking his thumb. Not even a sock tied tightly around his hand and soaked in bitter herbs could stop him from sucking!
His father joined the then University of Ife(now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, in present day Osun State, South Western Nigeria, in the late 1960s after completing his studies and his family relocated from New York, USA to the University staff quarters in Ile-Ife. The period coincided with the University’s movement from Ibadan, its temporary site to Ile-Ife, its permanent site, widely adjudged as one of the most beautiful university campuses at that time. It was in Ife campus that Junior thrived and grew into a healthy, beautiful, sociable, and very gregarious child. His older siblings remember him to be the kid brother who could not be separated from sucking his thumb. Not even a sock tied tightly around his hand and soaked in bitter herbs could stop him from sucking!