If you meet Alhaji Adegboyega Arulogun for the very first time, you won’t believe he is 82. He does not look it. He also does not behave as someone in his 80s. He is still very agile and sprightly. He bounces about the house like a 50-year- old. He does not use a walking stick. And does not use reading glasses. His set of sparkling white teeth are still very much intact.
What perhaps will give rinkle of grey hair at the fringes of his bald head. His power of recall is absolutely fantastic and he will tell you the date and time some events happened decades back.
Until he went into retirement a few years ago, Alhaji Adegboyega Arulogun was the former Commissioner for Information in Oyo State, a position his son, Toye, now occupies in Gov. Ajimobi’s cabinet. When City People visited him last March we found a happy and contented man. He and his wife are close. They are friends. Both live together since all their kids have become grown up and live on their own. Many of those who know him, praise him. They describe him as a highly principled man and a damn good professional.
After a distinguished career in TV production at the WNTV, NBC, NTA, Baba Arulogun, who is from the illustrious Arulogun family in Ibadan, moved into public service and served a few military governors as Commissioner.
Now, in full retirement, nothing has changed about the man with many nicknames, one of which is Angle Spirit, coined from his days in school when he used to play football.
He is an eminent Film and Television producer. Alhaji Adegboyega Arulogun, celebrated his first birthday at 80 on Saturday 1st October, 2014 in the ancient city of Ibadan in style. 2 years after many people are still talking about it. It was grand. It was classy. The venue was the Multipurpose Hall of Emeritus Professor Theophilus Oladipo Ogunlesi, University College Hospital, Queen Elizabeth Road, Ibadan. The event took off first, with Prayer and Breakfast session between 8.00am to 10.00am. It was followed by a visit to Ibadan Home for Motherless Babies, opposite the University College Hospital, Ibadan between 10.00am and 12.00 noon. Gifts and food items were given to the children to appreciate the goodness of Almighty God. The Open House reception and entertainment of guests followed immediately. At the birthday party was the Oyo State Governor Senator Isiaq Abiola Ajimobi and his pretty wife, Chief Mrs. Florence Ajimobi. Many traditional rulers, government officials, top politicians, business men and women, professional men and women, religious leaders, media practitioners and many others too numerous to mention from far and near.
The 3-time Commissioner in the old Oyo State was born on October 1, 1934 in Ibadan. Educated at Baptist Boy’s High School, Oyo, School of Agriculture, Moor Plantation, Ibadan, Overseas Film and TV Center, London, Sender Freis Berlin (West Germany) and the University of Lagos. Alhaji Arulogun possesses adequate professional and management training that has stood him in good stead in his public and professional career. He attended the Management Appreciation Course of the Nigerian Institute of Management in 1978, Industrial Relations Course for Collective Bargaining
(1971) at the University of Ibadan, the Advanced Management Course by the Royal Institute of Public Administrators (RIPA), London, in situ for NTA at Abeokuta in 1982 and the Advanced Management Course for Public Enterprise by the Administrative Staff Collage of Nigeria (ASCON) Badagry, in 1983. He also attended a Special Management Course on Civil Service Reforms for Commissioners, Directors General in 1990.
In his Television career, he managed the Production Services of the Nigerian Television Authority between 1977 and 1987 till he was appointed the General Manager of NTA Channels 5 and 10 in Lagos in 1987. Later that year, he moved to NTA Ikeja, Channel 7.
In 1988, he was appointed Commissioner for Information and Culture of Oyo State. He served there till January 1992, having headed the Ministries of Information, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Works and Transport. While in Oyo State as Commissioner, he was Chairman of the State Merit Award Committee for two years, Chairman of the Public Enlightenment Committee on the Transition to Civil Rule, the 1991 Population Census, The Infrastructural Appeal Fund and the Publicity and Speech Writing Committee of the Presidential and Vice Presidential and Vice Presidents’ visits to Oyo State in 1991, 1990 respectively.
He returned to NTA after his service in Oyo State, as an Assistant Director in the Marketing Department of the largest TV Network in Africa. He was the Chairman of the Advertising Award Committee of NTA for 1992 and 1993 and represented NTA on the APCON (Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria) Advertising Standards Panel between 1992 and 1994.
Professionally, as a Film and TV Producer, Alhaji Arulogun, who grew up in the industry as a Film Editor, worked on many local and international productions, lectures and documentary including ‘The Open Door’ and ‘Nigeria: A Squandering of Riches’.
He was the production co-coordinator on the BBC-WETA-NTA production of Ali Mazrui’s ‘The Africans’ and Basil Davidson’s ‘Africa’ for Mitchel Beazley Television. He was a co-editor on two feature films, Wole Soyinka’s ‘Kongi’s Harvest’ and Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ produced by Calpenny Nigeria Films Ltd.
He has hadmany successful productions on the Network of the NTA. Some of them are ‘Ogunde: Man Of The Theatre’, ‘5 Days in Badagry’, ‘Dance for Harvest’, ‘FESTAC 77’ and ‘Born to Live’ among others.
Alhaji Arulogun has contributed Film and TV articles and papers to many seminars, symposia and workshops. He has given many lectures on Film, TV and current affairs. He served on the Editorial Board of NTA’s Guide.
He is widely travelled having visited Republic of Benin, Ghana, Egypt, Britain, Germany, United States of America (USA), Swedeen, Finland, Korea, Israel and Saudi Arabia, mostly in the course of his professional pursuits, Film and Television.
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