On Wednesday, December 18, the Artistes Collective will hold a special stampede to celebrate the eminent artiste, dramatist, journalist and communicator, Ben Omowafola Tomoloju.
The event, which will attract a host of culture practitioners, academic and high networth guests, will feature conversations, stage reading of play, musical CD launch, book and play launch, poetry performances, tribute and art house reception. The event holds at Freedom Park, Lagos.
Tomoloju, who Semore Badejo, CEO Concrete Studios, said, “if the name, Ben Tomoloju, comes strange to you, it’s either you are not in the art of arts or you are not an arts enthusiast,” was born on December 18, 1954 in Ilaje Council, the coastal part of Ondo State Nigeria. He had his primary education in various parts of the old Western Region between 1960 -1967. He attended Christ School, Ado-Ekiti for his school certificate and Higher School Certificate (HSC) between 1968 and 1974.
He proceeded to the University of Ibadan and graduated with a degree in English and Literary Studies in 1978.at the University, he also had a comprehensive training in theatre and dramatic arts. He effectively combined his career as a dramatist with that of a pace-setting arts journalist. In both cases his motive-force is humanism, especially one that protests against man’s inhumanity to man across age-groups, sexes, races and creeds.
His role in the development of journalism in Nigeria clearly shows the masonry of a visionary intent upon building a viable legacy for future generations of professional’s arts journalists. More copiously, his plays, published and unpublished, celebrate the rites and rights of posterity with “the child” at the centre of their philosophical articulation.
Tomoloju started his career in journalism at the age of 19, in 1974, as a free-lance cartoonist with the defunct Newbreed magazine, and later, upon his graduation in 1978, he worked as a producer with the Nigerian Television, Makurdi for his National Service.
Thereafter, he Tomoloju returned to Lagos. He took up a full time job as a teacher and part-time job as the Arts Editor of Weekly Focus. In 1982, he joined The Punch as the Chief Leader Writer. Although his job entailed leading discussions and writing the editorials, Tomoloju’s passion for arts journalism compelled him to open a column in The Punch in 1983 called “The Portrait Of An Artist”.
Leaving The Punch, he took up an appointment as the Reviews Editor of The Democrat Weekly in 1983. His success as Reviews Editor in The Democrat Weekly led to his invitation by the management of The Guardian to start the paper’s Arts desk in April 1985. Added to his background activities in Weekly Focus, The Punch and The Democrat, Tomoloju’s tenure as the pioneer Arts Editor and later Deputy Editor of professionalism in arts journalism in Nigeria.
In the early stages, his colleague described his desk as “the one-man arts desk”. He was his own reporter, sub-editor, typist and line-editor. But with zeal and passion, he expanded the vision and scope of arts journalism, bringing a wide range of artistic and cultural into public focus. His advent also created job opportunities for scores of young graduates of the humanities as virtually all print and electronic media created Arts Desks after the success of The Guardian. So much that some of the distinguished editors and writers in various Nigerian newspapers today are product of the old “one man arts desk”. Most significantly, through the developmental journalistic practice of Ben Tomoloju School, the power of compilation, dissemination and articulation of strategic information in the relevant in the fields of the literary, performing and visual Arts, as well as culture administration demonstrates to Nigerians, the relevance, vitality and viability of culture in the national scheme of things. In recognition of his historic contribution to Nigerian cultural life, was listed in the book Who Is Who In Nigeria as the pioneer of professional arts journalism in Nigeria in 1998.
