Twenty five years ago today, Godwin O. Ajala went to work at the World Trade Center in New York, just as he had done many times before.
He was 33 years old.
A Nigerian trained as a lawyer, Ajala had moved to the United States in 1995 in search of better opportunities. In New York, however, he was working as a security officer at the World Trade Center while studying for the New York State Bar Examination.
He had dreams of becoming a lawyer in America, bringing his wife and three young children from Nigeria to join him, and building the family life he had imagined.
On September 11, 2001, those plans came to an end.
But before his own life was lost, Ajala helped other people escape the burning World Trade Center.
Twenty five years later, his name remains among those inscribed at the September 11 Memorial in New York.
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The Nigerian Lawyer Who Started Again in America
Godwin O. Ajala was born in Nigeria on June 9, 1968.
He trained as a lawyer and became a lawyer in Nigeria before moving to the United States in 1995.
Moving to America did not immediately give him the life he had hoped for.
Ajala worked different jobs before securing a position as a security officer with Summit Security Services at the World Trade Center.
His job was a long way from the legal profession he had left behind, but he continued working towards returning to it.
He was preparing for the New York State Bar Examination.
His friends remembered how hard he worked. Ajala reportedly worked from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., returned home for a short rest and then studied for another six to eight hours, often late into the night.
He took affordable preparation courses rather than attending an American law school because he could not afford the cost.
He attempted the New York Bar Examination three times.
He did not pass.
Yet he continued working and studying.
There was another reason he was determined to succeed.
His wife, Victoria, and their three children, Onyinyechi, Uchechukwu and Ugochi, were living in Nigeria. His friends said he hoped that passing the bar would help him establish himself in America and eventually bring his family over.
His youngest child was only one year old.
Ajala was still working towards that dream in September 2001.
Then September 11 Changed Everything
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Ajala was at the World Trade Center.
At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower.
At 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower.
The second plane hit the building where Ajala was working.
The World Trade Center immediately became a scene of chaos.
People inside the towers were desperately trying to get out as smoke, fire and debris spread through the buildings.
Ajala was working in security at the complex.
Instead of simply making his own escape, he began helping other people get out.
He Held the Door Open for People Fleeing
Accounts from his colleagues and friends say Ajala helped evacuate people from the building.
He held doors open as people rushed towards safety.
He repeatedly went back inside to help guide more people out.
The same building he was responsible for securing had become a death trap, yet Ajala continued assisting those trying to escape.
A nomination submitted by Summit Security Services for a September 11 Medal of Honor award described security guards at the World Trade Center as continuing to assist rescue workers and evacuate people despite the danger.
Ajala was among those nominated.
He did not make it out safely.
His Last Days
Ajala suffered severe injuries during the disaster.
He was taken for medical treatment and remained in critical condition after the attacks.
He died on September 15, 2001, four days after the World Trade Center attacks.
He was 33 years old.
His death meant that the future he had been working towards would never become reality.
He would not take the New York Bar Examination again.
He would not become a lawyer in America.
He would not bring his wife and children to live with him.
And he would never return to Nigeria for the family visits he had made a regular part of his life.
Instead, his final days became part of the history of September 11.
A Nigerian Name at the September 11 Memorial
Today, Godwin O. Ajala’s name is permanently inscribed at the September 11 Memorial in New York.
His name appears on panel S-65 at the South Memorial Pool.
The memorial records him as having been born in Enugu, Nigeria, on June 9, 1968, and as an employee of Summit Security.
His name is among those of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11 attacks and related crash.
Ajala is widely remembered as the only Nigerian listed among the victims of the World Trade Center attacks.
For many Nigerians, however, his story is about more than where he came from.
It is about the life he was trying to build.
He had left Nigeria with professional qualifications and hopes for a better future. He found himself starting again in a foreign country, working long hours, studying at night and trying to create an opportunity for his family.
He did not get the ending he had planned.
But his final actions gave his story another kind of legacy.
The Dream He Never Got to Finish
Ajala’s life in America was supposed to be a beginning.
He wanted to qualify as a lawyer again.
He wanted to establish himself.
He wanted his wife and children beside him.
He wanted to invite his family to America and eventually celebrate his admission to the New York Bar with them.
His friends remembered how much that dream meant to him.
But on September 11, he found himself in a situation where other people’s lives were suddenly in danger.
He helped them.
The man who had spent years trying to secure a better future for his own family ended up using his final moments to help strangers secure their own lives.
That is the part of his story that has endured.
25 Years Later, His Name Remains
Twenty five years have passed since the morning when Godwin Ajala went to work and never came home.
The World Trade Center is gone.
The city has changed.
A generation has grown up that did not experience September 11 as it happened.
But his name remains.
It is carved into the memorial alongside thousands of others whose lives ended in the attacks.
Godwin O. Ajala was a Nigerian lawyer, a security officer, a husband and a father.
He was also a man who, in the middle of one of the most terrifying moments in modern history, helped other people find their way out.
He never got to finish the dream that took him from Nigeria to America.
But twenty five years later, his final act continues to tell the story of a man who did not think only of himself when it mattered most.
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References
National September 11 Memorial and Museum, “Names at the 9/11 Memorial.”
Legacy.com, “Godwin Ajala, An American Family Dream,” obituary originally published in September 2001.
Summit Security Services, September 11, 2001 Special Awards Program nomination.
New York Times, “Profiles in Grief,” September 2001.
BlackPast, “Godwin O. Ajala.”
City of Lone Tree, “9/11 Flag of Honor Across America Memorial” biographical records.
