Abdulwarees Solanke, Deputy Director/Head, Strategic Planning & Corporate Development Department Voice of Nigeria pays tribute to renowned journalism scholar and writer, Professor Olatunji Dare who clocked 80 on July 17,2024
My senior in the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos, UNILAG, in the mid-1980s, Lekan Otufodurin a few days ago dropped a nine-paragraph piece on Facebook to commemorate the 80th birthday of an enigmatic scholar, Professor Olatunji Dare who grilled our generation of journalism students in the rudiments of journalism and the art of biting writing with flowing prose, sometimes satiric but mostly deep and rich, with elegant use of words.
Titled, *Dare: ‘Lecturer, Writer wey sabi’* Otufodunrin spoke the minds of virtually all of us who went through the mill of us. He shared his experience of Dare:
“I had the privilege of having Professor Olatunji Dare as my project supervisor in 1985 at the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos.
“My initial topic was on one of those popular media coverage of one issue or the other that will involve using a questionnaire, but Dr Dare back then, counselled against writing a project based on unreliable data that some students claim they gathered during their research.
“He suggested historical research that would be valuable for the industry and we agreed on the topic: Nigerian Union of Journalists ( NUJ): Achievements, challenges, and Prospects.
“To date, my project is still quoted in many publications about the history of the NUJ. I remain grateful for his guidance and support..”
Earlier, my classmate, another of Prof Dare’s proteges Azubuikwe Ishiekwene, the Managing Director of Leadership Newspaper, shared a similar sentiment on how this enigmatic journalism scholar inspired his writing from his first day in class.
In Azus’s piece, he related how the Prof. tortured or tutored him to turn around what he considered a best effort into a gripping piece which now formed the bedrock of his scintillating articles that resulted in his becoming a serial award winner in informed commentaries.
Lekan’s celebratory piece was followed by a torrent of likes and deserving comments from students and all who had encountered our prof through his writings.
Tunde Akande, a student who Prof. Dare had faith in and recommended him for PhD but which he did not lap on wrote:
“Prof Dare Olatunji is a great man, a very big man who still relates with very small men like me. He is a disciplinarian but you can never fault that he wants the best for his students. I say to friends who know him that if I had not been a Christian, I would have worshipped Professor Dare. And I mean it. He was that very big before me when we were his students. He told us then that he does not forget anything he reads. And I found that to be true. Very profound brain. The first person to make a first-class at the Department of Mass Communication at the University of Lagos. A master wordsmith.
“He supervised my Master’s project. He was then just returning from abroad where he had taken his PhD. He made possible what a fellow lecturer, I forgive him, had delayed for one long year, allowing the draft to gather dust on his bookshelf. He returned a well-edited copy to me only after two weeks I gave it to him. In a few other weeks, I did my defence and earned the master’s.
“If Prof Dare will read this, I want him to know I know I disappointed him. How? He wanted me to start a PhD immediately assuring me the experience would not be as harrowing as the masters but I turned the offer down. He didn’t believe I could but I did. I think he believed in me more than I believe in myself.”
Peter Adebolu another protege of Class 1985 – 1988 summed Dare aptly, *Prof for Life. A very impactful teacher*
“Another great journalist of this generation, Shola Oshunkeye defined Prof Dare in terms of his greatness and impact as a scholar.
“Greatness does not consist in the billions a man has in his bank account, or the number of houses he builds, or the number of cars in his fleet. Greatness is the impact a man makes on fellow humans and the footprints he leaves on the sand of time. Prof. Olatunji Dare, GREATNESS is thy name”
As for me, I see Professor Dare’s classes as the foundation of my scholarship in the study of public policy, a field I earned a Master’s degree in 20 years after graduating from the University of Lagos through a scholarship from the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association at Universiti Brunei Darussalam.
The truth is our generation of mass communication students was just too blessed to have Professor Dare as a teacher-mentor, who graduated from the same department with a first class. Our blessings were however multiplied by the fact that we were also taught by some teachers and contemporaries of Professor Dare. So, in my contribution to Otufodunrin’s congratulatory reflection on the enigmatic scholar, I wrote:
*Our years at UNILAG in the mid-80s were blessed to have the likes of Olatunji Dares, Andrew Moemeka, Onuora Nwuneli, Alfred Opubor, Idowu Sobowale, Luke Uka Uche either tutoring or torturing with their vast field of communication knowledge. In their classes, we were learning more than mass communication. We were being grilled as total social scientists.
“This is my admiration for the mass communication programme at UNILAG in those years. You cannot be a good mass communication student without distinguishing yourself in courses like sociology, political science, history, development studies, public policy, and international relations because these are specializations with which they explain or illustrate mass communication. Happy birthday to Prof. Olatunji Dare and happy life to all our other living mentor-scholars who taught us Mass communication”