For ÈGBÓN Benson Abiola IDONIJE on his 85th birthday

Ben Jay ! De Jay !  
THAT‘s the unmistakable high decibel voice of the “music man” announcing his arrival behind the microphone in studio C of the  Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, NBC, every Saturday afternoon. 

That was an invitation to the offer of a staple menu of the best in contemporary, world, social music of the second half of the swinging 60s and the 70s. 

Your passionate and iconoclastic presentation enriched the Nigerian broadcast radio’s broadcast space and made your name for ever “Ben Jay”.

You have beaten the odds. Do you  remember our experience in your famous Toyota Corona on the night of the Ali Must Go university students’ demonstrations at the junction of Ogunlana Drive and Ojuelegba-Lawanson Road, Surulere, Lagos, in 1978, when we escaped death by the skin of our teeth?

NOW, YOU ARE 85! My dear and respected EGBON, Benson Abiola IDONIJE , Somebody up there loves you! 

Happy Birthday!! 

• Tunde Aiyegbusi is a veteran writer and broadcast manager