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Those at the
opening ceremony of the fourth Festival of Indigenous African Language
Films (FIAF), held in Akure, Ondo State, last month won’t forget
veteran broadcaster and actor, Yemi Ogunyemi, in a hurry. He had all
laughing to his witty comments in English and Yoruba languages while he
remained poker faced. The Ibadan, Oyo State indigene confirmed his
status as a master compere during that session and others he handled at
the week-long festival.

That he was
excellent in his handling of the session shouldn’t have come as a
surprise, however. The talented Ogunyemi started the trade early. From
acting in primary school, he graduated to leading the literary and
debating society at Ibadan Grammar School where he also maintained a
column called ‘Window on Biafra’ in the school magazine, ‘The Viper’.
He also recited ewi on ‘Karo Ojire’ on WNTV/WNBS and featured in
children’s programmes before he started freelancing, first with the
Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria and then Nigerian Television. He
was a pioneer freelance staff when the first NTV Theatre was
established in 1977 before he became a full staff in 1979.

TV and I

The presenter of
‘En Balaya’ the first Yoruba quiz programme on TV recalls his journey.
“I got into television through acting. I was acting and doing other
things on a freelance basis. My journey into broadcasting started one
day when the controller of news met me on the corridor and said: you
will help me read the Yoruba news today. He gave me the script which I
translated into Yoruba and I read it well that they were happy about
it. The second day when they had a management meeting and a post mortem
of the previous day, they said I should be given a commendation letter.
The admin people told them I was a freelance artist, that how do we do
it? They were surprised and said they should interview me and give me a
letter of appointment. That was how I got into the news division.

“I was reading the
news but management thought it was conflicting; reading the news today
and acting a jester or houseboy the following day. They said I should
stop reading the news but I could present programmes. That was how I
was drafted to the programmes division to present programmes.” The ‘En
Balaya’ years

Ogunyemi started
presenting ‘En Balaya’ which brought him fame in 1979 after Funmilola
Olorunnisola, currently spokesman to the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade
Sijuwade, left the show. “I ran ‘En Balaya’ from ‘79 to 2004. It was my
movement from NTA Ibadan to NTA Oyo that stopped the programme. It was
the first quiz programme in Yoruba and it ran the longest period. It
was my star programme because it was the only programme that nobody
ever took over from me or presented. I was doing other programmes but
that was my sole programme and ‘En Balaya’ became my second name over
time.” Though ‘En Balaya’ and ‘Tan’mo’, another Yoruba quiz programme
were popular then, the reverse is now the case. “Quiz programmes depend
on prizes. If you see people falling over themselves on ‘Who Wants to
be a Millionaire’, it is because of the millions there,” Ogunyemi
begins in trying to explain the current situation. “It is prizes that
attract participants to quiz programmes but with the state of our
economy, I don’t know. If not for telecommunication companies, which
company is ready to sponsor programmes of that magnitude? It is not
that we are not forthcoming with ideas but the sponsor has to be
there.”

Hazard on the job

His run-in with
security agents for punning on the name of the late Tunde Idiagbon,
then second in command to military head of state, Muhammadu Buhari, is
one Ogunyemi describes as “one of the hazards of the job.” The day, the
man who featured in the popular ‘Koko Close’ says, “was one of my
saddest moments in life. I was on the sick bed at Alafia Hospital,
Adamasingba but we had a live programme. I didn’t want it to fail so I
asked my children to smuggle in my clothes and I asked my producer to
bring his car to the end of the hospital so I could steal into it. It
was that programme that put me into trouble and I was in trouble for
four months, 13 days. It was some overzealous security officers that
put me into trouble. They said I bastardised the name of Idiagbon.

“It was the
beginning of a quarter and I thought it was sacrilege for my programme
to fail at the beginning of a quarter so I was rolling out
instructions. Somebody said ‘ofin Yemi Idiagbon, o le ju ti Tunde
Idiagbon lo’ [Yemi Idiagbon’s rules are more stringent than Tunde
Idiagbon’s] I replied Emi ise Idiagbon, Idiope lemi’ [I’m not Idiagbon,
I’m Idiope] and that was it. I didn’t end the programme before the
security people came to pick me. I was suspended and I had to face the
music.” After months in jail, the case against him was dropped and he
was reabsorbed into the NTA.

While the Idiagbon
incident is one of his saddest moments, his happiest is the day he got
employment to appear on TV. “By 1977 when we started full time
freelancing with NTV Theatre, I had wanted to work in a TV station.
Each time they advertised, I applied but when they conduct interviews I
was not given a chance. I continued freelancing but had no chance to be
a full time staff. When the opportunity came without any interview,
either written or oral; they said: go and give him an appointment
letter after that management meeting. They gave me the letter on the
corridor of a one storey building at NTA Ibadan and I almost jumped
down from there to go tell my friends the news.”

Training is vital

Like most old
school presenters, Ogunyemi is of the view that though he had the
talent, the thorough training he received made him the consummate
compere that he is. “People are not trained nowadays. I laugh when I
see or hear presenters either on radio or TV; they are not prepared at
all. In our time, you have to script everything that you will say from
the beginning to the end. You will script like a teacher preparing a
note of lesson and your boss has to mark that script. You don’t go
outside that script for anything, you don’t add or subtract. That
prepared us for any eventualities. I don’t have ready-made jokes
because I’m not trained for stand-up comedy; we were trained as
comperes of occasions. It is what is happening that you use to make
people feel happy. You are not just to make people laugh without
substance.” He also insists that standard is falling among TV and radio
presenters. “During our time, TV was more of social services and if you
are giving social services, you have to do it well. What I see with
radio and TV these days is that producers don’t do any homework. The
other funny thing about TV and radio nowadays is that they just
introduce one topic and ask people to begin to comment. Also, a radio
or TV presenter will start his programme, the first five minutes, he is
praising himself. If you write your name twice on your script, they
will cancel it. When you mention your name on TV or radio, they think
you are projecting yourself; and you are not supposed to project
yourself.”

Fulfilment and retirement

Ogunyemi goes
philosophical when asked if he is fulfilled. “Fulfilment is a relative
word. Fulfilled in what sense? I have one rickety car; my house is
still uncompleted though I live in it. I became the general manager of
a station before I retired, so I will say I’m fulfilled, if you want me
to say so. And I don’t regret anything in my life. Anything that
happens to me, it has happened. In my younger days they called me Ariya
Manager because I’m always a very happy man.” He says of life after
retirement: “I’ve not been doing much, I have a farm I go to and I have
grandchildren I attend to. I have a farm behind my house which takes my
time and I have a compound I hoe. I’ve not been doing much because as a
retiree, the first few months were not comfortable. I have a full-time
housewife so at the end of the month, I discovered there was nothing.
The little I had in the bank, I was withdrawing and the first four
months, everything got finished and I still have two children in the
university. My father had some late children and I am sending three of
them to school so it was not palatable. God is taking care and I’m
finding my feet gradually,”