By Tayo Fatunla
Cartoonists Association of Nigeria CARTAN are pulling all stops to mark the 80th birthday of Professor. Dele Jegede who has turned 80. An exhibition featuring cartoons, caricatures, and drawings of Dele Jegede by Nigerian cartoonists, artists and caricaturists in collaboration with Didi Museum will be on display, in celebration of Professor Dele Jegede at the Didi Museum in Lagos. Cartoonists such as Mike Asukwo, Tayo Fatunla, Dada Adekola (President of CARTAN) will also be showcasing their works at the Museum.
Dr. Dele Jegede got his first job as a youngster with the late Engineer Idowu Akinde was Executive Engineer at PWD. This provided him with the moral and financial stability to enrol at the prestigious Yaba College of Technology, where he was influenced by many instructors, including Adebayo and Yusuf Grillo.
There are icons and there are icons but when it comes to arts and cartoons in Nigeria, Dr. Dele Jegede is a living Icon and a legend that history will be kind to and remember well for his contributions immensely to the development of the Nigerian Society and contemporary Nigerian art. Dele Jegede is a Nigerian American painter, art historian, cartoonist, author, curator and teacher. He drew editorial cartoons for Nigeria’s Daily Times and the popular strip Kole the Menace for Sunday Times. He later relocated to the US to continue in his beloved carer. He is a fan of my work and my illustrated OUR ROOTS that documents Black History. He has now clocked 80 years on earth and the art world is celebrating a long fruitful life.
Dele Jegede enrolled at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos, where he was influenced by instructors like Adebayo and Yusuf Grillo.
Jegede was well-known as a comic artist and editorial cartoonist, Jegede’s works were the daily comics ‘Flower Power’ and Kole the Menace. Although his active career in the cartoon world was for about 20 years, he still had a significant impact on the development of Nigerian newspaper cartoons locally and nationally.
Jegede worked as a newspaper cartoonist and art editor for The Daily Times of Nigeria and its sister publication The Sunday Times. Incidentally, his cartoons were all published in the mid-1980s. His Kole the Menace cartoon strips went through a period of Kole with caps on and without caps. Daily Times one of Nigeria’s foremost national newspapers published a cartoon compilation of Kole into a small booklet. In it, Kole was with an assorted range of wears, including a variety of hats/caps. Jegede also published satirical political cartoons in the Sunday Times and Lagos Weekend under the titles ‘Pocket Cartoons’, ‘Deles Opinion’, ‘Weekend Cartoons’ or simply under his own name.
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The Sunday Concord newspaper published his cartoons in colour under the title ‘Funny Cords’. This was in fact the first colour Sunday comics section in a Nigerian newspaper.
Kole the menace started in the Sunday times in 1975 and ran till 1979 when Dr Jegede left Nigeria for Indiana university in the US for his graduate studies. Even though he left the Daily Times in December 1976, where he assumed his new position at University of Lagos in January 1977, he continued producing Kole cartoons after he had left the newspaper up till 1979.
Jegede was born in Ikere Ekiti 80 years ago and he actively grew up in home that helped shaped his future as an artist. He has done several exhibitions and the most recent was un
Few people have shaped their field as profoundly as dele jegede has influenced the Nigerian arts scene. His innovative styles and techniques stand out amongst many. He has been of great encouragement to young and older cartoonists. As a Board member of CARTAN, he has immeasurably supported Nigeria’s Cartoonists association physically and financially, as well as intervening when issues arose within CARTAN. His involvement and sometimes participation in CARTAN’s events is exceptional and has been of great encouragement and in the process has been a blessing to CARTAN through the years.
Jegede has remained dedicated to his profession. Yes, he still paints at 80. And at present he has a solo exhibition at the Calabar Museum in New York titled – Protestations: délé jẹ́gẹ́dẹ́, Art, and Activism curated by Atim Annette Oton. The solo exhibition are paintings he has done over the last five years. This 80th birthday celebrates much more than eight decades of life. It marks a career that has given hope to up and coming artists and cartoonists across the globe.
A life well drawn exhibition runs from the21st – 27th June 2025 at the Didi Museum – 175 Akin Adesola Street, Victoria Island.
• Fatunla is an Cartoonist and Comic artist of African diaspora