Chief Wale OgunyemiListen^ⓘ, OFR (12 August 1939 – December 17, 2001) was a Nigerian veteran seasoned dramatist, film actor, prolific playwright, and Yoruba language scholar.^[2][3]

Early life

Ogunyemi was born on 12 August 1939 at Igbajo, a city in Osun State, southwestern Nigeria to Samuel Adeosun and Mary Ogunyemi.^[4] He attended the University of Ibadan in 1967 for a year course in drama, the same year he was appointed as a research assistant at Ibadan Institute of African Studies where he later retired.^[5][6][7]

Career

Ogunyemi began his acting career as a seasonal actor with the new western Nigerian television service in the early 1960s.^[8] He later worked with professor Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate and became a foundation member of Soyinka Orisun Theatre.^[9] His credible performance made him a choice for the role he played as "The bale" in The Lion and the Jewel^[10] and Dende in Kongi's Harvest by professor Wole Soyinka.^[11] He also featured in The Beatification Of Area Boy, a play by Wole Soyinka premiered at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1995.^[12] He had written and co-scripted several drama before his death in December 2001.^[13][14]

Filmography

• The Lion and the Jewel
• Kongi's Harvest
• Sango (1997)
• The Beatification Of Area Boy^[15][16]
• The Ijaye War (1970)^[17]
• Kiriji (1976)^[18]
• The Divorce (1975)^[19]
• Aare Akogun (1968) and Everyman *Eniyan, published in 1987)
• Langbodo (1979)^[20]

Awards

• Member of the Order of the Niger awarded in 1982 by the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
• Majeobaje of Okuku, a chieftaincy title conferred on him by the Olokuku of Okukuland^[21]