Very blunt and frontal, though some will describe him as brutally confrontational,Femi Akintunde-Johnson, whom we all love to call FAJ is one man who is passionate about his craft.
He is rarely caught sitting on the fence on issues and each time he writes, his is deep and incisive. It is this writing style that makes him cut that figure of a bully. In any case, he had to be, because we are in a country where we love to take things for granted. He became the godfather, and the bible of entertainment. You would have thought he was already in his fifties at that time. As tall as he is, his pen was taller and mightier.
FAJ was incorruptible. He was addicted to his work, this thankless job that has become our religion. Please forgive my blasphemy. His principle was that of no friend nor foe. No story was too intimidating for FAJ to write. Many times, friends begged me to beg FAJ. Let me confess that I did not have the influence to deliver the message. I knew his ready-made answer. ‘Bob Do, you know you are too much of a politician and have too much friends, if we spare all your friends, there will be no paper to publish’. I admired his guts. He was a philosopher king, ahead of his time, and his art.
Reading his masterpieces, you could easily see that FAJ had an impeccable pedigree. He was a scholar in journalism. He should have been teaching Mass Communications, Theatre Arts, Music, English Language, Literature, and so on. He would have excelled in all.
If this was a serious society, FAJ would have been banished to Harvard, Oxford orCambridge Universities as a researcher into our fading arts. Or he would have been in New York’s Broadway checking out plays, music and movies. He would’ve been inducted into the Academy of Arts in any part of the world. But here we hustle between our art and our trade, or better put our daily bread. In the process only two things suffer: Our Art and Our family.
It is within this order that FAJ had endured all tribulations; to stick to his art. He himself may not be as visible as before but FAJ has remained committed to his lifetime passion. This book, I have been asked to present is an eloquent testimony to the triumph of mind over matter.
Aptly titled, FOOTPRINTS, Interventions in Nigerian Entertainment, it is a potpourri of powerful reportage, as well as a cadaverous analyses of Nigerian arts and entertainment. In this collection of essays by FAJ, the reader is taken down memory lane and on a tour de force of creativity at its best. The time span is long. It covers many generations of our arts and artists. But mainly the era before the explosion of hip-hop. He still finds space for the new wizkids of music though.
I know there is so much more from this master chronicler, the consummate artist, the quintessential teacher, the avuncular critic, the stupendously talented prose stylist and above all, a man of God. This book is a compendium of reference materials and a must-read for all lovers of great music and spectacular performance.
I thank FAJ for this honour, and I thank his ‘number one’, his wife, Ire, for standing by him through thick and thin. In FAJ we see the promise of a great future of Nigerian intellectuals. The best we can do is to give him a standing Ovation for his gallant effort and help to spread this book all over the world.
-culled from NET
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