Tribute to a Griot Weighed By Adversity

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

How do you succour a great mind and fine gentleman who has been severely dealt with by the inalterable vicissitudes of life? Every word, thought, wish of commiseration is but a vain blast of incoherent inadequacies…a tokenism without redeeming appendages. Yet, we must do all the best we can to leverage our community, our humanity and our creativity in the overall interest of the well being and continuance of the human race.

The last quarter of the outgoing year was brutal on the psyche of our person of interest: first, he was quarantined in October by the sudden demise of his younger brother, Olukayode Ogayemi (1963-2021) in far away Dallas, USA. Then in the second week of November, the grim one sneaked in to snatch away his beloved wife of many decades, Abosede Adama (1974-2021).

Usually a deep-thinking introvert, and an immensely gifted individual, the occasion of his 67th birthday last Saturday (December 18) might not be, for him, a window of self-adulation, and thunderous sigh of an annual relief, yet we must do all the best we can to remind him that the rest of his life can even be more auspicious and impactful to humanity that those wonderful 67 years gone past.

This is my maturing tribute to the man many of us love to call Ben T:

“To him of the dancing voice – I “thro-way” salute….

As a young fellow in 1983, I could not resist the Arts pages of The Guardian… even most of the “offerings” of the new Sunday newspaper seemed way beyond my comprehension. I would not be daunted. I wanted to learn – strange words, ideas and ideals – just as much as I wanted to share. I was fascinated by several writers – most of whom I had read voraciously long before I encountered them as study books.

A mortified devotee of the stage, the pen and the muse, it was easy for me to form a triumvirate with fellow moon-lighters (Olawale Obadeyi and Muyiwa Kayode) serenading ourselves in what we thought were intellectual duels – our opponents later dotted the pages of The Guardian. We battled our “paper tigers” into spatial submission, often in Muyiwa’s Onipanu residence or “Abe-Igi” in the hallowed precincts of the National Arts Theatre, between 1982 and 1983. These “bloody” disputations were sometimes triggered by what we read in the art pages of The Guardian. To us no other paper existed. And none of us had gained admission to the university!

We therefore resolved to confront the object of our angst directly, and provoke more “fire-wood” to stoke our intellectual inferno! How vain the column of the youthfully ignorant.

With little or no money, we (I am not now sure if we went as three or one or two short) arrived at the sparkling fresh Rutam House to confront our Ogre. We wanted to meet and challenge the person in charge of those pages that had become the source of constant amazement and “belittlement” for us.

Looking back, it was incredible that we went to Rutam House at a moment when we could gain access to its reception area, get the attention of its newsroom – and the chairs before the “Arts Editor”. And we chatted. No, more like we “charted” him and talked him into accepting our “profound” attempts at writing poetry, plays and what-have-you. A ritual we later perfected at ThisWeek with the inimitable team of Sonala Olumhense, Tunji Lardner, etc.

Years later, when I became an editor, my perspectives in relational context were horned in the sundry engagements with Mr. Ben Tomoloju, the self-effacing Lord of the Art manor at The Guardian. From that first contact, he took us as mentees (we didn’t know that word then, so we had no inkling what he was doing). He laboured to pierce through our intellectual arrogance, and encouraged us to divert our attention towards writing exploratory materials and arty news reports.

In a few months, we had become “string-reporters” who could look up to some “stipends” based on “snippets” we could deign to write during our “re-education”.

By the time I left the national youth service corps in Akure, my singular ambition was to work in the Guardian. The dream had been nurtured for five years! So, in September of 1988, I confronted my future – and received a hammer blow. Ben T told me – in his proverbial run-around about Providence and Eternal Will – that the two spots on the Arts desk had been taken, but he had managed a good alternative. Crestfallen, I received a note and instruction to see Mr. Demola Oshinubi (the Editor of The Punch) – and the rest, as the cliché goes, is now history.

But my long-standing suspicion that it was Jahman Anikulapo who took “my spot” never creased. I held on to it for a few years that my friend, Jahman got it because he was a better actor and a closer disciple to Ben T… oh, why did I have to go all the way to Jos of the Plateau to study English…? But I have since forgiven Jahman (not as if he cared or that I dwelled on it). Even then, Ben T didn’t abandon me to my devices – he checked on my sojourn and hovered over my career. He was eager to support any action or initiative we dreamt up that sought to develop the craft of reporting the arts or expanding the scope of culture and entertainment.

As I was writing the concluding part of this tribute, I mistakenly clicked “delete” instead of “save” in my haste to meet the deadline – and was too distraught to recapture the passion of the first draft. Nevertheless, I believe my thoughts and that of my family – and all whose lives have been impacted by this gloriously “tentative” man of letters and ideas – will always hold Benson Omowafola Tomoloju in great esteem. Though he will reject these pieces of adulation and fantastic expressions of love and admiration – we are nonetheless bound by all that is good and worthy to tell the world how wondrously magnificent this man has been to so many in different fields and “fixations”

We therefore salute the man with the dancing voice – whose will over words and power over prose is unimpeachable.

So, arise and shine…through the current misty maze… May God bless Ben T at 67, and beyond!”