Ambassador Segun Olusola Dies At 77

One of Nigeria’s best known culture aficionados, broadcasters, patron of the arts and diplomats, former ambassador of Nigeria to Ethopia, Chief Femi Olusola is dead. He passed away on Thursday 2, 2012 after a brief illness.

Mr. Olusola, who earned several chieftaincy titles, worked as an actor, playwright, and was a founding member of “Players of the Dawn,” an amateur outfit that dominated the theater scene until the end of the 1950’s decade. The influence and dominance of “Players of the Dawn” was only eclipsed with the establishment in 1960 of “Masks,” a more professional theatre troupe founded by future Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.

Mr. Olusola had a reputation as one of Africa’s leading art connoisseurs. Thanks to his cultural enterprise, his family gallery, Ajibulu-Moniya Gallery, was transformed into one of Nigeria’s magnificent commercial galleries, which is open to the public.

Venturing into diplomacy, Mr. Olusola became Nigeria’s longest-serving ambassador to Ethiopia, representing his country in Addis Ababa from 1987 to 1993. Given his background in the arts, it was no surprise that his diplomatic career was marked by the deployment of the tools of arts and culture to pursue the goals of deepening relations between Nigeria and Ethiopia.

May his gentle soul rest in peace.