‘Yebo Gogo’ ads legend Kole Omotoso passes away at 80

You see his warm smile and calm demeanour and you instantly think of Vodacom’s Yebo Gogo ads from the 90s. Professor Bankole Ajibabi Omotoso, also known as Kole Omotoso, passed away after a long period of illness in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

He might be affectionately known as the ads man here in South Africa, but there was more to the 80 year-old than what meets the eye.

Omotoso, born in Nigeria in 1943, was a renowned and celebrated academic globally.

Kole Omotoso the academic

Omotoso is the father to actor and film director Akin Omotoso, who South Africans will remember as Khaya Motene on Generations, and he recently directed Rise – a 2022 biographical sports drama film based on the lives of NBA stars – the Antetokounmpo brothers.

On Thursday morning, Akin wrote a touching message on Instagram confirming his father’s passing and celebrating his life.

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“He pursued his secondary education at King’s College in Lagos. He subsequently graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1969 and was awarded a PhD in Arabic Literature from the University of Edinburgh and the American University in Cairo in 1972,” wrote Akin.

“He returned to Nigeria together with his wife and our late mother, Marguerita Rice, where he was a lecturer at the University Of Ibadan’s Department for Arabic and Islamic Studies before taking up a teaching position at the University of Ife’s Drama Department.”

In 1988, Omotoso published a critically acclaimed novel Just Before Dawn, which highlights the revolution in Nigeria and made him an enemy of the state at the time.

Together with his family, Omotoso relocated to Cape Town in 1992, where he held professor positions at the English Department of the University of the Western Cape and the Drama Department of the University of Stellenbosch.

“Though he left Akure at an early age, his Yoruba heritage greatly influenced his view on the world and his work,” Akin jotted.

“A couple of years before his passing, he realised his dream of building a homestead there, designed by Yewande. Here he was able to live and work with his wife Bukky and her children, Taiwo and Olamiposi, from 2016 until his return to South Africa in 2019 for medical treatment. He kept up a weekly column in the Sunday Guardian and worked with the Elizade University.”

Take a look at 4 of the hilarious Vodacom ads he was a part of below:

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