December 25, (THEWILL) – Famous Nigerian ace photographer, Pa David Owolabi Ositelu popularly called ‘Born Photo’, is dead.
Pa. Ositelu died in his sleep on the eve of Christmas Day, Friday, 24th December, 2021 at his private residence in Ibadan, Oyo State Capital.
THEWILL reports that Ositelu who was born in Agege, Lagos State on Christmas Day, 25th December, 1935, breathed his last peacefully while taking a nap in his iconic ‘Born Photo studio located at Bashorun Apampa Street, Isale Osi area of Ibadan.
The Ekefa Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oloye Lekan Alabi, who confirmed the development on Saturday, prayed that God grant the “noble soul of the 86 year old renowned photographer” eternal peace
The deceased, an indigene of Ogere-Remo,Ogun State was noticed to have passed on by Nafisat, the daughter of his friend, after returning from the Friday Jumat on December 24.
Pa. Ositelu, was the photographer who took the passport photograph on the first Nigerian International passport with which the late Governor Isiaq Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State travelled to the United States of America (USA) in the early 1970’s.
His high profile clients included the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Adegoke Adelabu Penkelemesi, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and Colonel Adegboyega Adeniran among others.
The Ekefa Olubadan of Ibadanland also admitted and disclosed that, it was the late David Ositelu who took his (Alabi) passport photographs for his secondary school entrance examinations in 1963
Ositelu was commissioned into the Nigerian Army as a photographer during the Nigeria Civil War (1967 to 1970), and later became a high society photographer.
His studio was 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, Raimi ‘Sango’, Paramole, both political activists, in the 1960’s among others.
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