Ògògó: Death on the River Bank, By Oladeinde Olawoyin

So the man who, in May 1990, dazzled the crowd with an excellent praise poetry at Hubert Ogunde’s burial rites at the National Theatre in Lagos would go ahead to become a household name, not necessarily because of his mastery of Yoruba panegyrics, but essentially because of his charm, physique, and charismatic appeal on the big screen.

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From the sacred hill of Ori-Odo, through the tip of Ago Ishaga in the heart of Ilaro, Egungun Eyeba gyrated in its multi-layered regalia, throwing an excited crowd into ecstasy. It was on the occassion of Oronna Festival—-Ilaro’s most significant cultural celebration—and the mammoth crowd screamed in celebration of the 17th-century generalissimo who saved the kingdom from Dahomean invaders.

There were dancers, chanters, masquerades, poets, and acrobatic performances.

In the midst of the crowd stood a man who, for four decades, embodied the artistic essence of that cultural moment on the big screen, projecting the image of Ilaro to every Yoruba household outside the rustic roofs of Ago Ishaga: Taiwo Babatunde Hassan a.k.a Ogogo.

On Sunday, 23rd of August, months after that joyful celebration, tragedy struck and Ilaro dissolved into tears.

The man died.

Central to the communal essence and evolution of the Alarinjo traveling theatre is Egungun performance, in addition to other artistic elements that made incursion into the culture within the decades that Hubert Ogunde and others—Duro Ladipo, Ade Love Afolayan, Baba Sala, Oyin Adejobi, Ojo Ladipo, iShow Pepper, etc—-popularised the art.

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Think Bolojo. Think Efe. Think Gelede. Think Oro.

Interestingly, across Yorubaland, very few sub-groups can outshine the Yewa-Egbado people of Ilaro and adjoining communities—-Imeko, Agosasa, Ipokia, Igbogila, Imasayi, Sawonjo, Tube and deep into the borders of Benin Republic—-in the magical worlds of gymnastics and poetry.

It was in that rich tradition of Yewa-Egbado acrobatics and poetic chants that the young Babatunde Taiwo Hassan bloomed, even though he went through a metamorphosis in his latter-years on the big screen.

So for the early-year observer, before Ogogo made a detour and limped his way through the crowded streets of Odunfa, the prognostication was quite simple: young Taiwo Hassan was destined to excel as a chanter. He had the carriage, the bravura, the traditional orientation, the sense of history to navigate his ways through the contours of tradition, panegyrics, cultures, cognomens, and all that, with a voice as tiny as a nightingale’s. But the man that would become a larger-than-life persona on our big screen turned out a somewhat different character altogether: while Ogogo of the 1990s became the confident, daring, city-dwelling Lover Boy and all-round Mr Nice Guy, the younger Babatunde of the early 80s was a shy, rustic chanter.

It was no surprise that before retiring from his job as an auto mechanic with the Lagos State Water Corporation in 1994, Ogogo spent the early years of his career with doubts engraved in his mind about the sea change that loomed: he was at peace with chants and panegyrics; he was apprehensive about being moulded into anything else on the big stage.

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But as fate would have it, before he breathed his last in August, he would emerge as arguably the most charismatic lover boy Yoruba cinema has seen in forty years!

There isn’t any data-driven research to validate this hypothesis, but if we throw in a little mischief, it’s safe to say that many a Yoruba husband exhibited traits of jealousy and insecurity in their handling of domestic affairs in the late 1990s through to the noughties principally because of their wives’ undisguised admiration for Taiwo Hassan Ogogo.

In a sense, from Ibadan through Offa, from Sepeteri to Ilaramokin, from Iragbiji through Kobe, every young lover-boy wanted to be in his (half-)shoes, lily-white and all, almost literally, as women swooped over him with reckless abandon.

So the man who, in May 1990, dazzled the crowd with an excellent praise poetry at Hubert Ogunde’s burial rites at the National Theatre in Lagos would go ahead to become a household name, not necessarily because of his mastery of Yoruba panegyrics, but essentially because of his charm, physique, and charismatic appeal on the big screen.

Yet, nearly four decades after, his artistic life would come full circle. And it’s a testament to Femi Adebayo’s directorial ingenuity that before he took his last breath, Ogogo’s most fascinating gift as a chanter was put to good use in Seven Doors, Adebayo’s Netflix movie, enabling a relatively younger generation to witness the different side of a lover boy that occupied their childhood fantasies and imagination.

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A few days ago, I returned to ‘Owo Blow’, that 1996 blockbuster of a flick shot by Tade Ogidan, the great Wale Fanu, and others, and one thing struck my imagination: Ogogo’s most alluring appeal—and, perhaps, his most enduring legacy—was his Character. Not necessarily the handsome physique, not quite much the ‘Action’, but the admirable essence of a character that was morally conscious and flawed in a way that made him lovable, even when he played the equivalent of Othello’s lago.

Interestingly, in that immediate realm, one can hardly separate art from life: Ogogo cared about character portrayal in arts, even in movie scripts he acted the villain, nearly as much as he lived his actual life.

First, in Owo Blow, he was the charismatic head of a robbery gang who, unlike his colleagues, operated with an unusual, thou-shall-not-kill moral compass; in Irunmulowo, he was the well-behaved son and accidental beneficiary of a robbery incident that changed his material and familial story; in Ibinu Elewon, he was the angry young man who took laws into his own hands in ways that the audiences, rather strangely, justified; in Omo Olomo, he was the Baby Daddy who showed that fatherly love could rise above the din of DNA controversies. In all, he operated with moral codes that seemed violently contrasting to his characters, but still came out in ways that depicted his vulnerability as a flawed, morally conscious, lovable human.

Again, the pendant’s inquiry pops up: what made Ogogo tick as a thespian for nearly four decades—-becoming such a household delight, especially among women?

That concern isn’t much of a complex riddle: the Ogogo persona was built on and off movie sets, religiously almost, in fidelity to the foundational essence of the Alarinjo Theatre——that good ol’ philosophy that Art should entertain as much as it should teach morals, condemn social ills, and instill discipline.

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Alongside Yinka Quadri, Muyideen Alade Aromire, Fatai Oodua, Dele Odule, Rasaq Ajao, Abbey Lanre, and many others outside the Odunfa Caucus, Ogogo represented a generation that served as link between the Ogunde generation and the newer generation of thespians that emerged in the 1990s and the 2000s, popular among whom were Yemi ‘My Lover’ Ayedun, Thompson, Saheed Balogun, Yomi Fash, Femi Adebayo, Olumuyiwa Ademola, among others.

To be sure, between Ogunde’s and Ogogo’s generations, a generation existed somewhere in-between, with leading lights such as Oga Bello, Jide Kosoko, Aluwe, etc.

Oh, scratch that(!), a pedant fixated on neat categorisation of generations would expand the discourse further: there were more than one generations of thespians between both men.

First, Ogunde occupied the pioneering category with his contemporaries—-Kola Ogunmola, Duro Ladipo, Charles Olumo, Baba Dawodu, Baba Layeni, G. T. Onimole, etc. Then came the 2nd generation, which, during the oil boom era, led the transition from Alarinjo and stage plays to Celluloid: Moses Olaiya (Baba Sala), Oyin Adejobi, Ade Afolayan, Baba Mero, and others.

From Ade Afolayan’s generation came the 3rd generation, younger turks who led the transiton-to-VHS era, notably Alagba Lere Paimo, Oga Bello, Jide Kosoko, Baba Wande, Ajimajasan, Aluwe, Aderupoko, among others.

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So between Ogunde and Ogogo, there is a long chain of transitions across eras occupied by thespians whose records have now become a blur, spanning decades.

Yet by the time Ogunde died in 1990, Ogogo was already a rising star, and the Alarinjo traveling Theatre culture was being disrupted by time, economy of scale, evolving technology and audience taste.

Stripped of all pretensions, indeed in 1988, two years before Ogunde’s death, the brilliant, innovative Alade Aromire had produced Ekun, recognized as the first-ever Yoruba home video recorded on VHS format. At a time when pioneers like Ogunde and Baba Sala relied on expensive celluloid film, he had democratized filmmaking by opting for affordable video cassettes, laying the groundwork for the Nollywood boom we eventually witnessed.

Although Aromire was Ogogo’s contemporary who succeeded as a thinker, innovator, and business-minded thespian, Ogogo established far deeper connections with the audiences and was more succesful on the big screen as an actor. And even though both men (Ogogo and Aromire) started out as friends, alongside Yinka Qadri, Abbey Lanre, Lalude and Rasaq Ajao Pafuele, a ghastly collusion between fate and their inability to reconcile knotty leadership issues led to Aromire’s exit from an agreement originally designed to give birth to Odunfa Caucus, easily one of the most enduring legacies of mordern Yoruba Cinemas across generations. (Aromire, who sadly shone in the night sky like a comet and died in a ghastly accident along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in 2007, had quite the reputation of being perceived as “arrogant” among his colleagues, and, for me, in retrospect, many such geniuses have had to contend with such albatross, anyway)

By the mid-1990s through to the the cusp of the millennium, everything had shifted completely, and Ogogo’s generation became the torch bearer, the link between a fading past and a future that loomed with uncertainties.

In that regard, as a leading light of that generation, while working with his contemporaries to shape a future, Ogogo still embodied the artistic worldviews of three of the leading figures of the pioneering generation: Hubert Ogunde, the avant-garde who specialized in sociological, moral, and political satires and used his stage plays and folk operas to openly criticize greed, corruption, and social misbehavior; Duro Ladipo, who focused heavily on history, mythology, and Yoruba cultural tragedy; and Adeyemi ‘Ade Love’ Afolayan, who was best known for his romantic dramas, family dynamics, and entertainment value.

In a sense, from Hubert Ogunde (at whose funeral rites Ogogo rendered a beautiful, memorable chant), Taiwo Hassan stuck to the bigger concern of using theatre to teach morals and satirise the danger of social misbehaviours. From Duro Ladipo, he mesmerised us with historical chants steeped in Yoruba mythology. From Ade Love (with whom he confirmed in a 2025 interview that he had a tete-a-tete about his good looks and rising profile in the early years), he took ownership of the romantic appeal of a Lover Boy.

Away from the klieg lights, he lived all three ideals at different junctures of his life. On the crowded streets of Odunfa, via Ebutte Meta, he was a model of exemplary conduct and discipline. On the dusty fields of Ikorodu, he was the quintessential father who showed love to his adorable daughters. At the open pavilion and traditional arenas of Ago-Ishaga in Ilaro, he dazzled the crowd with chants and poetry. In all, he was flawed in a lovable, admirable way.

Ogogo’s legend transcends the realms of movie locations and remains on the lips of music lovers, even, providing a variety of perspectives to his persona: on the lips of Olamide Bad’oo, he was the king of “Action”; for Fuji Star Saidi Osupa, he was “Agbomojo”—–the one who dances with the child—-a trait visible in the admirably beautiful relationships he had with his daughters; and for Wasiu Alabi Pasuma and others, he was the eternal Mr Nice-Guy, the quintessence of male perfection.

I once wrote on here that Ogogo, to my mind, didn’t excel in storytelling; and the all-too-familiar approach to characterisation also made many of his flicks susceptible to flacidity.

But he was quite an actor—–no, he was, indeed, The Actor.

Here then is for Ogogo, the actor who lived in the fantasy and imaginations of boys of my childhood; Ogogo, the performer who dazzled at the arena like a star that never goes dim; Ogogo, the chanter whose tiny voice travelled far across the bank of Yewa River:

Ogogo, ọmọ ikú lódo
Ọmọ adìẹ sùn, wọ́n ṣebí kùkù ló kú,
Kí wọn tó lótàtán, adìẹ dìde ó yan fándá.

Ìlarò ọmọ erin lóníbú,
ọmọ ẹfọn ló nọ̀nà,
Ọmọ pàkàn làkàn lẹ́yìn jíjọ,
Àwò nì gboórí ilẹ̀,
Ọmọ iná tín jó gẹregẹre lórí omi,
Ọmọ òkú dúdú tí kò ya kùnràn.

Ọmọ Kúlódò tó tì dẹrù lẹ́wà,
Ọmọ kìníkìn-ín ò joye l’Ẹ́sà,
Tó bá wá joye l’Ẹ́sà ńkọ́?
Ilésanmí lásán lọba yín mú wọn jẹ.

Sun n re o.

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Excerpt from a soon-to-be-published piece titled ‘Ogogo: Death on the River Bank’