HE SAVED ME COMPLETELY

HE SAVED ME COMPLETELY. 

There was a frenzy of activity at the Jaiyesimis residence. Love was in the air and all was set for Adebukola and Olufemi’s wedding. Even OpeOluwa was coming in from the UK with gifts, souvenirs and all Oluyinka’s bags and shoes to match. Yipeee. It was going to be a day to remember.
This was the first wedding in the family so everyone was excited.
On Friday morning, (09/09/1995) they all set out for Ibadan where Hon. Justice and Chief Mrs. Adeyemi and members of their families received the Jaiyesimis with open arms as they came to ask for Adebukola’s hand in marriage.
All the sistas came from UBA. They had all bought the asoebi of sky blue and burgundy with strips of gold. Sadly though, Ngozi took ill at the traditional wedding ceremony on Friday and she had gone back to Lagos on Saturday morning. The sistas missed her.
Otherwise it was a lovely time and the families were so grateful to God for the success of the events. 
While the newly wedded couple went off on their honeymoon and life was getting back to normal, Oluyinka was back to work on Monday morning.
After a long week, the sistas decided to pay a visit to Ngozi who had been in hospital as she was ill with malaria. There were no GSM’s then only land phones. So they drove down in separate cars after work on Friday evening (15/09/1995) to see Ngozi at home.
Thank God, Ngozi was much better and she was so happy to see the sistas.
After the visit, the sistas bade farewell to one another amidst shouts of “See you on Monday.” 
Oluyinka (with a friend of Ngozi’s seated beside her) drove on ahead as she was going to make a right turn up ahead at Ogunlana Drive. Olufunke, Rotimi and Big Sis were behind. But just before Oluyinka got to her turn, a brown Volks Wagen Santana car, intercepted her. Thinking this was bad behaviour and a very dangerous thing to do, Oluyinka simply put her hand on the shift stick and put it in reverse. Before she could move, a man who had jumped out of the Santana was banging on her window and while she tried to take her hands off the gear stick and talk to the man, the man raised his hand and before Oluyinka realised what was going on, the man shot point blank through the glass window at the left side of her face. She blanked out instantly. While the other lady kept screaming “blood of Jesus”, the guy made away and Oluyinka’s car, already in reverse just kept going backwards until it met a lamp post. The car came to a crashing halt. The sistas who were driving past at that moment realised that something was not right. They parked and came around only to find Oluyinka in a pool of her own blood and the other lady going hysterical.
The sistas tried stopping passers by to help but no one stopped. Everyone was too frightened. Then an angel came by in a blue bus (Mr. Victor). He stopped immediately and helped them bring Oluyinka’s almost lifeless body out of her car. They all hopped onto the bus and Sweet Ro (Rotimi) cradled Oluyinka’s head in her laps all the while using her head scarf to try and stop the flow of blood. And all the time the sistas were praying and speaking in tongues. Eventually they got to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital.  After showing (through their bank ID cards) that they were all responsible citizens and not people who had got into a crazy fight (this was Friday night) Oluyinka was admitted into the A&E.
Dr Obatusin (Big Sis’s husband) later came around from FIIRO to help as well. 
The Jaiyesimi household was thrown into disarray and sorrow all at once. A week after the very first wedding in the family and this kind of tragedy struck.
Mummy Jaiyesimi, OpeOluwa, and a few others hopped into the car and found their way to LUTH that night.
Oluyinka remembered seeing one or two people, heard Dr Obatusin but that was it. She blanked out again. 
On Monday, the Oral Maxillofacial team led by Dr. Gbemiga Ogunlewe (now Professor) spent five hours in a surgery that made Oluyinka look again like a human. (All this while the sistas were outside praying in tongues.) And after three and a half weeks of mostly lying on her back on a hospital bed and following up with the Oral maxillofacial and opthalmology departments she made progress enough to go home still on a diet of complan which she had to drink by sipping on it from a straw pushed through a gap made by two of her teeth that had fallen off from the gun shots. Her jaw was completely wired up and her teeth were braced up too. The rest, as they say is history. 

I am OLUYINKA and this makes thirty years of the most harrowing experience of my life. Today, I am alive and well, (very well actually) Happily married to a great man and the mother of an amazing son. And I still get to Praise God, Thank Him, Worship Him, Adore Him, Give to Him and Serve Him. Because He did not only save, deliver and preserve me, He did it  COMPLETELY AND PERFECTLY. HALLELUYAH!!! 
Yet as harrowing and traumatic as the experience was, I have mostly memories of being surrounded by love all through this journey.
God was, has been and always remains Faithful. He put the best people around me for exactly such a time as that. Some of us have not been in touch with each other for years, some have gone home to be with the LORD, some live on other continents.
Tonight please, allow me to honour God in the lives of my family, my friends, my sistas, and everyone who stood with me.

I honour the memories of:

Samuel Oluyemi Jaiyesimi

T’Olorunleke Jaiyesimi

Olori Modupe Onadeko

Georgietta Olufemi Williams

Yvonne Nkereuwem  (Eyo)

Funso Bilesanmi

 

I appreciate and honour:

Modupe Olufunmilayo (My mother; a woman of deep strength) 

Olufemi

Adebukola

OpeOluwa

SomiOluwa

Funke Obatusin

Dr. Obatusin

Professor Gbemiga Ogunlewe and the Oral Maxillofacial team, LUTH (1995)

Constantine

Funke Akinrodoye

Funke Ogunseitan (Balogun)

Rotimi Fowler (Fisher)

Ngozi Ubah (Edoka)

The Afonja Professors

Solzzzzzz

Akin Akinsheinwa

Ajibare

Benjamin Asoluka

The Olusanyas

The O. O. Phillipss

Professor Ajesola Majekodunmi

Dr. Kofo Odusote

Modupe Ogundeyin (Komolafe)

Aderonke Onadeko

Nnekka Maduakoh (Nosamiefan)

This list is by no means exhaustive.  If I  have not mentioned you by name, I honour you no less.

I CELEBRATE AND HONOUR JESUS, THE LOVER OF MY SOUL WHO SAVED AND HEALED ME COMPLETELY.  I AM FOREVER GRATEFUL LORD! 

 

OLUYINKA EGO-MARTINS ©