Chief Dare Babarinsa

Adegbenro Adebanjo

Chief Dare Babarinsa, one of the best wordsmiths in the pen profession, joins the Septuagenarian Club, Friday, May 9, 2025.

Our Oga and one of the leaders of the Pen Profession, that of the finest variety infused with ethics and developmental perspectives, is now 70 and has become one of the elders of our land.

Chief Babarinsa is an elder in whom we are well pleased not just for his sterling contributions to journalism but  also because of his imprimatur of excellence and patriotic fervour and Omoluabi ethos. He is one of the builders of Yorubaland and Nigeria.

Trained at the University of Lagos, Chief  Dare Babarinsa, who hails from Okemesi Ekiti , Ekiti State, was one of the revolutionary writers who, along with the late Dele Giwa, redefined news magazine Journalism via the Newswatch Medium.

He left Newswatch and, with four professional colleagues, founded TELL Magazine in 1991.

TELL  pioneered what some have described as activism journalism, where a subtle and atimes open campaign for a better society was infused into reporting and news dissemination,  sometimes at very grave danger to the practitioners.

Babarinsa, through incisive pieces, waged war through the barrel of the pen against two juntas which later, albeit reluctantly, surrendered to the wishes of the people.

He taught many youngsters the art of reporting and elevated writing.  He built many journalists and his imprints are clearly discernible in the media history of the country.

Dare Babarinsa loves writing, he uses the word to affect his world for the better. He teaches history through writing, and no subject is difficult for him to dissect for the reading pleasure and education of his ever-growing adherents. If you love good prose presented with facts and reasons sans irrelevancies, you will love Babarinsa ‘s works. And they are prodigious – opinions, historical works and faction- a mixture of factual accounts of real people or events with fictional elements, creating narratives that explore the intersection of reality and imagination.

Were he to have been born in another clime he would have been awarded a professorial chair for his practical knowledge and contribution to journalism. He is a professor of practice in journalism and we hope a University where journalism is taught will confer this honour on him shortly.

An essayist par excellence, inimitable writer, journalist of the finest variety, historian and a patriot with prodigious contributions to the growth of the Yoruba Nation and the Development of Nigeria, Babarinsa’s Sterling qualities, friendliness and readiness to lend a helping hand to all and sundry is legendary.

He is a bridge builder with tentacles and contacts in low and high places.

May the Good Lord bless and prosper your new age. Greater and better you in Jesus Name

Join me to celebrate this leader of the pen profession and Omoluabi of the finest breed on his 70th birthday.

-Adegbenro Adebanjo, a mentee of Chief Babarinsa sent this piece via [email protected]