By Henry Akubuiro
Veteran journalist, and pioneer arts editor of The Guardian newspaper, Ben Tomoloju, has lauded the President of Nigerian Folklore Society, Dr. Bukar Usman, for his remarkable contributions to Nigerian letters and culture.
Tomoloju, the author of Ogorun-Un Itan Lati Ile Yoruba, a collection of Yoruba folktales, published recently by the Dr. Bukar Usman Foundation, recalled, in a recent media interview, his first encounter with Dr. Usman as the reviewer of his book, Hatching Hopes, in 2006, and how the former Permanent Secretary in the Presidency had been unrelenting in broadening the frontiers of cultural and social knowledge since then.
“At that time, I had the privilege of being invited by him through my friend and his publishing consultant, Duve Nakolisa, to do a review of his books of folktales, during the public presentation of the autobiography,” he tripped memory lane.
“Thereafter, a literary relationship started between my humble self and the elder writer, a retired Permanent Secretary in the Presidency, a top-class bureaucrat and National Awards honouree. I was inspired by his commitment towards the promotion, preservation and propagation of Nigerian folklore, aside from his other engagements as an essayist and public affairs analyst.
“His revival of the Nigerian Folklore Society, of which I once served as a Public Relations Officer, was also a magnetic force that further attracted me to him as a folklorist. Soon, he began to engage me in one literary project or another, which I enjoyed handling because of the challenges they offered in terms of creative and critical explorations.”
Tomoloju recalled that those factors eventually led to him being commissioned by the Dr. Bukar Usman Foundation to go to the field and compile hundreds of Yoruba folktales, transcribe them, translate them into the English language and transform them into quality literary materials.
“Of course, I knew that Dr. Bukar Usman had already set the pace in this area with Hausa folktales and those of his Biu birthplace. He challenged me further to select and give literary embellishment to the Yoruba folktales, which I did.
“Dr. Bukar Usman later informed me that similar projects had been commissioned by his Foundation across different zones of Nigeria to be published in indigenous languages. That was how I had my first book in Yoruba published through the instrumentality of this assiduous, visionary and immensely creative literary icon.”
The veteran journalist was full of encomiums for what Dr Bukar Usman had done beyond the academic side of oral literature, “His interventions do not end with the academic side of orature. A book of panegyric poetry titled Songs For Dr. Bukar Usman, compiled and edited by Dr. Khalid Imam, also shows amply the amount of work Dr. Bukar Usman has done promoting oral poetry at the grassroots level.”
He informed that Usman’s “populist, philanthropic disposition has, thus, elevated him to the pedestal of a folk hero among the grassroots people, just as his cerebral inputs, profundity, prolificacy and dynamism as President of the Nigerian Folklore Society has conferred on Dr. Bukar Usman a legendary status in the literati. You may wish to see this as my personal testimony. I believe he eminently deserves all the accolades.