Tuesday, 19th March 2024
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Adieu Baba Sala!

Death is a necessary end, it will come when it will come!– William Shakespeare Sir: With every sense of loss and history, it sours our hearts to hear the death of Mr. Moses Olaiya JP., popularly known as Baba Sala. Baba Sala was a humble humorist, a stoic man with very influential figure in the…

Baba Sala | Ghafla

Death is a necessary end, it will come when it will come!– William Shakespeare

Sir: With every sense of loss and history, it sours our hearts to hear the death of Mr. Moses Olaiya JP., popularly known as Baba Sala.

Baba Sala was a humble humorist, a stoic man with very influential figure in the movie industry in Nigeria!

Baba Sala’s artistic representation was a local and national pride! He was an iconic character, veteran and guru in the theater or movie industry.

With his compendium talent in theater art, the ace man killed so many sorrows and replaced them with joy in every household in the southwestern Nigeria.

His artful and gymnastic skills in comedy spanned more than four decades in Nigerian movie industry.

Baba Sala revolutionised comedy, nurtured and served it as a tonic to sooth the stressful or troubled balms and souls of the people in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

Baba Sala’s name was a beautiful household, and a reference figure in the freelance and leisure minds of the sons and daughters of the soil-motherland-Yoruba.

Baba Sala was a prolific filmmaker. He also had a career in show business as a Highlife musician, debuting in 1964 a group known as the Federal Rhythm Dandies.

He tutored and guided the Jùjú music maestro, King Sunny Adé who was his lead guitar player.

He had some films credited to him that include: Orun Mooru (1982), Aare Agbaye (1983), Mosebolatan (1985), Obee Gbona (1989), Diamond (1990 Home videos), Agba Man (1992).

With his savvy clownishness, Olaiya usually brought joy and humour into the souls of millions of Nigerians.

He was a man who doggedly created an empire of theater, the utopian platform for the theater industry to flourish in Nigeria.

The rest of his work of art is history. Baba Sala was reported to have died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 82 in the wee hours of the night.

A quintessential man with unequaled sense of humour. His iconic character will forever remain in our boisterous hearts!

Rest in peace Mr. Moses Olaiya, Baba l’ulesha, in Osun State, Nigeria.

Yahaya Balogun wrote from Arizona, USA.

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