The iconic Nigerian photographer, David Ositelu, popularly called ‘Born Photo’, has died.
Mr. Ositelu, who was 86 years old, died in his sleep on Christmas Eve at his home in Ibadan, Oyo state.
Lekan Alabi, a chief in Ibadan, confirmed the death.
He said the body of the deceased was discovered by Nafisat, his friend’s daughter, after he returned from the mosque.
Alabi, the Ekefa Olubadan from Ibadanland, said it was the deceased who took the photograph of his passport for his high school entrance exams in 1963.
The deceased was also the photographer who took the passport photograph of the first Nigerian international passport with which the late Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi traveled to the United States of America in the early 1970s.
Ositelu’s high-profile clients included the late Obafemi Awolowo, Adegoke Adelabu Penkelemesi, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and Adegboyega Adeniran, a retired colonel, among others.
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The deceased was born in Agege, Lagos State, and was commissioned into the Nigerian Army as a photographer during the Nigerian Civil War (1967 to 1970). Later he became a photographer for high society.
His studio was the home of former Rashidi Ladoja, former governor of Oyo state, who is the incumbent Osi Olubadan.
It was also the home of Alimi Adesokan, popularly called “Leemy”, a late chairman of the defunct Ibadan District Council and parliamentary secretary to the late Prime Minister Samuel Ladoke Akintola of western Nigeria.
Others who found a home in Mr. Ositelu’s studio were the late Captain Lateef Adegboyega Bello of the Nigerian Army; Abass Olawoyin, the goalkeeper for Nigeria Academicals Football Club, the first Nigerian soccer team to defeat any Ghana soccer team on their soil; and the Iponriku Lakangudu masquerade, one of the traditional masquerades of Ibadan, among others.