Adebayo Faleti was a man of many firsts: Africa’s first stage play director, Africa’s first film editor, the first librarian with the first television station in Africa (WNTV/WNBS now NTA) and the first Yoruba presenter on television and radio. He was an actor, poet, journalist and film director.
Over an illustrious career that saw him write classic movies like the Tunde Kelani-directed Thunderbolt: Magun and direct many stage plays, Faleti was a true pioneer and exponent of Yoruba culture. He died at the University Teaching Hospital, Ibadan, in July 2017 at the age of 95.
Born to impoverished parents on December 26, 1921, Adebayo Faleti barely completed his primary education. For his secondary education, he started the Oyo Youth Theatre Group in 1949 with some friends, and they worked stages till he had enough money to pay for an education. Ten years later, in 1959, he joined the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service (WNBS), now known as NTA Ibadan – the first TV station in Africa – as a film editor and a librarian.
Over the rest of his career, Faleti wrote Yoruba novels and several Yoruba poems, directed and produced several Yoruba stage plays and translated Nigeria’s national anthem from English to Yoruba. He also translated speeches by various Nigerian heads of state and political figures, including Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, Obafemi Awolowo and Bola Ige.
In a 2017 opinion piece, Tunji Olaopa, executive vice-chairman of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP), said, “If according to Matthew Arnold, the British poet and critic, culture refers to ‘acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit’, then Alagba Adebayo Faleti’s existence and oeuvre did a lot in that regard. He cannot be left to the ravages of time and national forgetfulness.”
Adebayo Faleti was also the recipient of many awards, including the national honour of Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR). He wrote, starred and produced heavily cultural movies like Basorun Gaa and wrote others like the classic Thunderbolt: Magun. Also, he starred in similar films – Tunde Kelani’s Saworoide readily comes to mind.
Alongside peers like Akinwunmi Isola, Hubert Ogunde, Duro Ladipo and Babs Fafunwa, Faleti’s contributions to Yoruba culture and art propagation are immense and stretch across generations. If culture is the collective template that moulds a people’s perception of identity and capabilities, then Faleti’s existence was proof of the nobility in forging cultural connections for ourselves and the world around us.
Adebayo Faleti once said of his career: “Hard work pays, but it does not pay immediately. For example, as a young worker in broadcasting, I didn’t waste time that there was no official job to do. I kept on writing plays, novels and anything, whether I would get them published or not. I’ve discovered that work written over ten years can fetch huge money. That is the essence of hard work.”