Theodore Mukoro, 89, the pioneer Headmaster and lead character in the now rested NTA soap, Village Headmaster, is dead.
My father, late Theodore Mukoro, was never ill to the extent of being on admission for once until the last one where he died on March 7.
Even, when he had cataract surgery he came home the same day, Mrs Angela Ajetunmobi, one of the two surviving children , said.
She told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that late Pa Mukoro, the first person to act the `Headmaster role in the popular but now rested soap had a brief illness that led to his death.
This illness before his death was very brief, now I know what people mean when they say, died after a brief illness.
He took ill on Saturday, was admitted in hospital on Sunday and he gave up in the of Wednesday , March 7 in the arms of my sister-in-law, the wife of my fathers only surviving son.
The doctors were wondering why and asking what was the relationship between Uncle Ted and his daughter-in -law.
They were very close and it was like he had waited for her to arrive in the hospital that morning. He was said to have held her hand and took his last breathe.
He just slipped away while we were planning his 90th birthday for October, Ajetunmobi told NAN.
In terms of broadcasting, the late Ted Mukoro was one of the first 10 people to appear on WNTV screen as newscasters when it was set up by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the premier of Western Region at the time, she said of her fathers career.
Uncle Ted was the first person to play the role of the headmaster in the popular soap opera called The Village Headmaster usually transmitted on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) some years ago.
He was also one of the first persons to write scripts for the soap opera.
I recall that the first two or three scripts of the Village Headmaster Series were written by him as well as produced a few episodes. He coined a few of the characters names such as Jigabi and Bassey Okon.
He was very much involved with production of the now defunct household name opera.
Ajetunmobi said that her late father also feature in Dinner with the devil alongside popular actress Omotola Jolade Ekeinde.
According to her, Uncle Ted continued to work till the week before he died; he was consulted widely for the advertising world when many advertising agencies were working on new projects.
We were used to seeing them come here and give him briefs to write. He would be up till 4 a.m. He had a great work ethics; not a lazy man.
Ajetunmobi said that in every job his father did while alive, he always left his mark and was very famous. In advertising he retired as the first indigenous creative director of Lintas Communications Nigeria Ltd.
He worked for Star Beer where he coined the phrase Shine shine bobo andBlack tin good o for Guinness Beer.
I remember Patti Boulaye, OBE, who also featured in the Lux Soap advert he shot in Miami, Florida in the US.
He had a lot of achievements in the advertising world. We, including my late mother, grew up in front of the television participating in adverts, Angela Ajetunmobi told NAN.
She added that her father was great with the pidgin language as a Warri boy as well as the Queens English.
He would get angry with corrupted pidgin English.
He was a typical Warri boy and he also considered himself a typical Lagos boy because he had lived and worked all his life in Lagos, she said.
Ajetunmobi added that her parents were originally living in Warri from where they moved to Ibadan where she was born.
They finally moved to Lagos, ending up at the Nigerian Television then NTV where he was employed as a news caster.
My father was a very interesting person. He never stopped educating. That was something that I found very interesting about him.
Whenever he was watching my interviews on the television, he wasnt listening to the thrust of the conversation, all he was listening to was how I was pronouncing my words, the tenses and things like that.
Those were the things he focused on. He was a perfectionist in that regard. He was a great wordsmith. Words were his life.
He impressed that upon us. One of the things we his children are really good at is communicating with words.
Ajetunmobi added that because of her fathers love for words, the family house was and still is full of books. He was a books person, he read until his last day.
Before he died at 89; I was planning to set up a library in his honour and that of my mother who died in 2010. I would still do it in their honour
Source: NAN