The Nigerian entertainment and cultural community was still mourning the death of veteran actor, broadcaster, journalist, poet and writer, Alagba Adebayo Ajibade Faleti, when this interview resurfaced as a remarkable account of his life and career.
Faleti died on July 23, 2017, at the age of 86, after a brief illness. His death brought to an end the life of a man whose career cut across journalism, broadcasting, literature, academia, theatre and the promotion of Yoruba language and culture.
Born in Oyo to the family of Pa Joseph Awotunde Faleti and Princess Mariam Durowade Faleti, Faleti developed an early interest in storytelling, poetry and Yoruba culture. Those interests later became defining features of his professional life.
He attended St Joseph Catholic School in Oyo and Ibadan Boys High School before obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1968. He later trained at the Radio Netherlands Training Centre in Hilversum, where he obtained a certificate in television production.
Faleti also studied French language and civilisation at the University of Dakar, Senegal, and went on to establish himself as one of the early Nigerian professionals who helped shape television broadcasting and Yoruba-language programming.
His journalism career began with the Nigerian Tribune, where he contributed articles on Yoruba culture and other subjects before becoming a full-time reporter.
From journalism, he moved into the then Ministry of Information, where he worked as a cinema commentator, travelling across the Western Region to present films and disseminate government information.
His career took another significant turn when he joined the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) and Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service (WNBS), now part of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), as one of its pioneer staff.
At WNTV, Faleti initially worked as a Film Editor and Librarian before taking on wider responsibilities in programme production. He later became a producer of drama and cultural programmes and played an important role in the development of Yoruba-language broadcasting.
But his connection with drama began long before his professional broadcasting career.
Recalling his early years in an interview conducted by City People’s Dare Adeniran shortly after his 80th birthday, Faleti said his interest in acting developed while he was still a student and later grew through his experience with an amateur dramatic society in Oyo.
He recalled that he established and personally financed the Oyo Youths Superatics Society, bringing together young people interested in theatre at a time when professional travelling theatre was still relatively uncommon.
According to him, the group staged plays during festive periods and travelled to different communities to entertain audiences. One of the plays he wrote was titled The End of Dictators, a story centred on two friends named Patience and Wisdom.
Faleti said the group encountered a major crisis after one of its members became involved in a dispute that eventually led to complaints being made to Catholic authorities concerning the participation of school pupils in the theatre group.
The controversy, he recalled, nearly cost him his job and threatened the future of the theatre group, but the pupils eventually returned and the group continued its activities under new restrictions.
His experiences in theatre eventually became an important foundation for his later work in film and television.
Faleti went on to become a respected playwright, poet, writer and actor, contributing to numerous productions and appearing in several Yoruba-language films. Among the works associated with him were Basorun Gaa, Won Ro Pe Were Ni, Fere Bi Ekun and Sawo Sogberi.
He was also the author of several books, including Maagun, Ogun Awitele, Basorun Gaa and The Freedom Fight, while leaving behind other works that had not been published at the time of the interview.
One of his notable contributions to Nigeria’s cultural history was his translation of the Nigerian National Anthem into Yoruba, a version that was subsequently used in several South-Western states.
‘A Man Retires From His Profession When He Is Dead’
Despite his age, Faleti remained active in the Nigerian film industry and rejected the idea that advancing age should automatically bring an end to a person’s professional relevance.
Explaining his continued involvement in acting, he said: “A man retires from his profession when he is dead.”
He compared acting with professions such as medicine and law, arguing that professionals could remain useful to society even when they were no longer actively practising in the traditional sense.
Faleti said he intended to continue acting for as long as he was physically able to do so.
He also spoke about the challenges of remaining relevant, noting that people in every profession faced difficulties but that confronting those challenges was part of what made a person successful.
At the time of the interview, he had also been commissioned to work on a screenplay based on D.O. Fagunwa’s celebrated work, Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole.
From Television to the University
Faleti’s career also extended into academia.
While working in television, he became involved with the University of Ibadan’s extra-mural programme, where he taught advanced Yoruba studies alongside other respected scholars and cultural figures.
His appointment came despite the fact that he had not yet obtained a university degree at the time.
Faleti explained that his knowledge of Yoruba language, culture, literature and traditional poetry had developed through his upbringing, extensive writing and broadcasting work, as well as the influence of his father.
He said his early exposure to Yoruba stories, poetry, music, history and traditions gave him a body of knowledge that became valuable to the university at a time when institutions were actively seeking people with deep knowledge of indigenous culture.
His academic journey later developed further, adding another dimension to an already remarkable career.
On Yoruba Culture and Religion
Faleti also addressed the perception that people deeply involved in Yoruba traditional culture were necessarily associated with fetishism or occult practices.
Rejecting the assumption, he argued that knowledge or promotion of Yoruba culture did not automatically make someone a practitioner of traditional religion.
He pointed to his Christian faith and his exposure to different cultural traditions as evidence that cultural knowledge and religious identity were not necessarily the same thing.
“I was baptized in the River Jordan, so what else do you want me to be?” he asked during the interview.
On Acting, Fame and Marriage
The veteran actor also dismissed the suggestion that success in theatre or film necessarily encouraged practitioners to become polygamous.
According to him, some early theatre practitioners had several wives partly because it was difficult to recruit women into travelling theatre groups at the time.
He argued, however, that polygamy should not be presented as a requirement of success in the entertainment industry, describing excessive marriage as a personal choice rather than a professional necessity.
‘God Loves Me’
Asked how he had remained relevant in the entertainment industry for so many decades, Faleti attributed his longevity largely to divine favour and opportunity.
“I realized that God loves me long time ago,” he said, while acknowledging that remaining relevant for decades was not necessarily a reflection of being better than one’s contemporaries.
He cited musicians such as King Sunny Ade and Ebenezer Obey as examples of entertainers who had maintained their relevance over a long period.
For Faleti, longevity was a combination of talent, opportunity, perseverance and what he described as God’s favour.
A Legacy Beyond Acting
Faleti’s contribution extended far beyond the screen. He was a journalist, broadcaster, teacher, playwright, poet, translator and cultural custodian whose work helped promote Yoruba language and culture to generations of Nigerians.
His contributions earned him several awards and recognitions, including the national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON), which was conferred on him in 2008 by the administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
Yet Faleti remained uncomfortable with the conventional question of how he wanted to be remembered.
He argued that a person who had spent a lifetime working across several fields would naturally be remembered through the different aspects of his contributions.
His work, particularly his writing, acting and promotion of Yoruba culture, ensured that his voice continued to resonate beyond the period in which he lived.
The death of Adebayo Faleti at 86 therefore marked the passing of one of the notable figures of Nigeria’s first generation of broadcasters, writers and indigenous-language cultural ambassadors.
His final years may have been spent away from the intensity of his early professional activities, but his body of work remained deeply connected to the development of Yoruba theatre, broadcasting, literature and popular culture in Nigeria.
Credit: City People Magazine
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