Come the next Boxing Day, Highlife legend, composer and one of the pioneer musicologists in Nigeria, Chris Ajilo will clock 84 years old but when he walked into the Corporate Office of Vanguard Media Limited some days back, to visit his old friend, the publisher of Vanguard, Mr. Sam Amuka, there was nothing of him to show he was anything near that age.
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Twice, the old music master climbed the four flight of stairs to the Publisher's office without as much as a pant. He was so full of life with much breath to spare even when those of us much younger were a bit breathless by the simple exercise.
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He was accompanied by Beautiful Nubia who granted us an interview but when it was Pa Ajilo's turn, he kindly declined. " I have been interviewed too many times. There is nothing new to be said about me that hasn't been said before. Everything you want to know about me is in the book", he said, referring to "Reminiscences of a Nigerian Pioneer Musicologist", an autobiography of his life he launched in January of 2013. "It is my gift to the future. It took me two years to complete and I am proud to say I wrote the book without assistance from any quarter"
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"I am not only a musician, I am a Copyright man, a Trade Unionist, a man that makes use of his hands and his brain" he said. "Read the book and you will share in my experience, the journey I had to travel through life". So, we took a journey into the mind of a great man through pages of his own autobiography:
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Chris Ajilo was born on December 26, 1929 in Oke Popo, in Lagos Island, close to Kakawa and Campos Square, an area commonly referred to as the 'Brazilian quarters' because slaves brought from different areas of South America after the abolition of the Slave Trade were quartered in this area.
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Chris Ajilo had a normal upbringing like every child born in the early 1900s in Lagos, growing up with his other four siblings. But his father's early death reshaped his life and cut a different path for him to follow. He was only nine years old when his father died and the burden of raising the children fell on his mother, Late Mrs Christiana Ajilo, who was a sewing mistress.
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His first encounter with music came at C.M.S.
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Grammar School where he was taught the theory of music. It was a compulsory subject at CMS then and it had as much effect on him as it did on every young person fascinated with music at that time.
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Then, he met another person who contributed in some way in awakening the music giant in him.