#ThrowBackThursday: This Throwback Story of Ajala the Traveller Will Make You Cry
Mashood Adisi Ajala Olabisi, best known as “Ajala Travel,” became famous in the 1950s for touring the world.
He visited 87 countries with his scooter. In 1972, Nigerian music legend Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey sang about the exploits of Ajala the Traveller in his 1972 hit album, ‘Board Members.’ Then, it was a big deal for Ebenezer Obey or King Sunny Ade to mention you on a record.
So, who is this Ajala that a whole Obey gave a shout out!! Ajala the Traveller’s real names are Moshood Adisa Olabisi Ajala. Born in Ghana in a polygamous household. His father had four wives and 25 children.
‘’I was born in Ghana, of Nigerian parents, and brought up in Nigeria, where I had my schooling at the Baptist Academy, Lagos, and Ibadan Boys’ High School. At the age of eighteen, I went to America to further my studies. My father, a traditionalist who belongs to the old school…” he wrote in his book ‘An African Abroad.’
He later went to De Paul University in Chicago in America to study medicine. His travelling adventures started in 1952 when he decided to embark on a cross-country tour of America with just his bicycle and agbada. He would cover 2,280 miles in 28 days starting from Chicago and ending in Los Angeles.
Ajala would embark on other globetrotting adventures thereby dumping his ambitions of becoming a doctor.
Thanks to his cross-country journey in America, Ajala became famous in America and back home. His fame led him to be an actor and he starred in a few movies. His time in America was blighted with his trouble with the law and he was eventually deported from the country.
In his lifetime, Ajala, the Traveller, visited India, USSR, Jordan, Iran Jordan, Israel and Australia. Remarkably he did this on a Vespa. He also met and dined with a lot of world dignitaries.
He died on February 2, 1999, in abject poverty irrespective of his fame.
Read Also:
Don’t Let Your Children Grow Up with Poverty Mentality—Reno Omokri
Follow us on Facebook – Dailyfamily.ng, Twitter – @DailyfamilyNG , Whatsapp +2348188889427, BBM PIN D86722A7 and instagram @dailyfamilyng for more updates.
