There are entertainers who become famous, and then there are those who become part of the cultural fabric of a generation. Femi Ogunrombi belongs firmly to the second category. Known to millions of Nigerian households as Papa Ajasco, the bold-headed, suspender-wearing patriarch of Wale Adenuga’s beloved comedy series, Ogunrombi was far more than a television character. He was a trained nurse, a gifted ethnomusicologist, a choral conductor, a stage and screen actor, a film producer, and an educator whose influence stretched across five decades of Nigerian artistic life.
When news of his death broke in January 2023, the outpouring of grief that followed was a testament to how deeply he had touched lives that went far beyond the camera. Yet the full story of who Femi Ogunrombi was, where he came from, and what he contributed remains poorly told. This biography sets out to change that.
Early Life and Family Background
Femi Ogunrombi was born Taiwo Olufemi Ogunrombi in 1957, making him 65 years old at the time of his death. His first name, Taiwo, is a traditional Yoruba name given to the firstborn of twins, a detail that offers an early window into his personality. Ogunrombi had a twin brother, and while the two shared the same beginning, they followed radically different paths in life. His twin pursued a career in medicine, choosing to remain in the sciences. Femi himself began in the same direction before something deeper called him away.
Details about his specific state of origin and the circumstances of his childhood remain sparse in the historical record, but what is clear is that he grew up in an environment that nurtured both intellectual discipline and creative instinct. These two qualities would define every stage of his adult life.
From Nursing to the Arts — A Career Switch That Defined a Generation
Before Femi Ogunrombi ever set foot on a stage or walked into a recording studio, he wore a different uniform altogether. In 1975, he enrolled in medical nursing and went on to practice as a registered nurse at the General Hospital in Ikeja, Lagos, where he was attached to the Accident and Emergency unit. His medical training gave him a precision and care that would later show up in how he approached every creative discipline he touched.
His nursing career was not a brief experiment. He took it seriously enough to transition from clinical nursing into industrial medical practice, working as a medical officer at Atlantic Textiles Mills, also known as Five Star Textile Company, along Festac Road in Lagos. This was where a close friend and colleague would later come to know him, noting that even in those years, Ogunrombi had not stopped making music. He was already a choirmaster and music producer by 1975, running both vocations in parallel.
But by 1979, the pull of the arts had grown too strong to ignore. He shut down his clinic and made one of the boldest decisions of his life, walking away from the certainty of a medical income to pursue music full time. He began frequenting EMI Music Studios in Lagos, where he worked alongside legends like Chris Ajilo and Item Udoh. He also connected with Peco Colete, who at the time managed Majek Fashek, and collaborated with veterans including Leji Oyewole, Emma Arinho, Epifanio Joseph, and the late Billy Wright. He was building a network and a reputation, and he was doing it with the methodical patience of a man who had once learned to keep people alive with his hands.
Education at Obafemi Awolowo University and the Birth of Ayoro Voices
In 1980, Femi Ogunrombi took another decisive step and enrolled at what was then called the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Osun State. He studied Music and Drama there, and it was during this period that he made what would become one of his most enduring cultural contributions: the founding of the Ayoro Voices.
The Ayoro Voices was a performing choral group that he established and conducted at the university. The group included talented voices like Ayo Thomas, Jide Ogundipe, and Iyabo Omomeji, and their reputation grew so remarkable that they became the official cultural image of OAU in 1980 and again in 1983. They went on to secure radio and television programmes on BCOS, OGTV, and NTA Ibadan, giving the university a distinctive artistic identity that Ogunrombi had personally crafted.
He was both a keyboardist and a bassist during this period, and he also served as the church organist for his Seventh Day Adventist congregation, a role that reflected both his technical mastery and his deep personal faith. The years at OAU were formative not just academically but spiritually and artistically. He graduated with a foundation in dramatic arts that would serve every chapter of his professional life.
Rise Through Nigeria’s Music and Cultural Institutions
After leaving university, Ogunrombi did not disappear into private enterprise. He sought a platform where he could build something lasting within Nigeria’s formal cultural institutions. In 1994, he joined the National Troupe of Nigeria as a music instructor, becoming the organisation’s first dedicated music instructor. It was a pioneering role, and he wore it with the same seriousness he had brought to nursing and to academia.
By 1998, he had risen to the position of Director of Music at the National Troupe. He inaugurated and conducted the National Choir during this period, creating a coordinated ensemble that brought formal musical discipline to one of Nigeria’s premier cultural bodies. The same year, having accomplished what he set out to do within that institution, he departed government service to pursue his own music career independently.
He also served as a consultant to the Lagos State Council for Arts and Culture and later to the Ekiti State Council for Arts and Culture in 2014, bringing his expertise to the development of cultural policy at the state level. These roles were not ceremonial. They reflected the esteem in which Nigeria’s arts establishment held him.
The Papa Ajasco Chapter — How He Became a TV Icon
The story of how Femi Ogunrombi became Papa Ajasco is one of the most unexpected in Nigerian television history. Papa Ajasco and Company was a family sitcom created by Wale Adenuga Productions that first aired in 1996. At its height, the show was watched weekly in over twelve African countries including Guinea, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, and was widely considered Nigeria’s most popular comedy series. The lead character, Papa Ajasco, was a womanising, bald-headed patriarch whose comical responses to everyday family life made him one of the most recognisable figures in Nigerian pop culture.
The original Papa Ajasco was played by Richard Abiodun Ayoyinka, who had inhabited the role for years and built a devoted audience around his interpretation of the character. However, a dispute arose between Ayoyinka and the production company that led to a parting of ways. The producers needed a replacement who could carry the weight of the character without losing the audience entirely.
They turned to Femi Ogunrombi, who at the time was already working with Wale Adenuga at the PEFTI Film Institute as the Director of Studies. His close friend, Osezua Stephen-Imobhio, later revealed that people had been calling Ogunrombi Papa Ajasco long before the show ever came calling, because his baldness, his build, and his natural warmth gave him an uncanny resemblance to the character. Lucky Alex, a Nollywood actor who knew him well, added that Ogunrombi initially rejected the offer until Wale Adenuga personally called him.
He assumed the role in 2006 and played it for approximately two years. During his time as Papa Ajasco, Ogunrombi brought a depth and refinement to the character that impressed industry insiders even as it created a challenge with the show’s core audience. He was, as he later described it himself, seen as an “elitist Papa Ajasco” by some viewers who had been attached to Ayoyinka’s earthier portrayal. When the producers assessed the viewing figures and the commercial implications, they made the difficult decision to bring the original actor back. Ogunrombi was approached sensitively and told plainly.
In a remarkably gracious interview he gave sometime after the experience, he said: “I don’t feel bad about leaving. The thing is that quite a number of viewers tended to be with the other guy. Considering the market target of the sponsors, they felt they were losing viewers and money. I was nicely told and I reasoned with them and left.”
Behind the Scenes: Ogunrombi as Mediator
What makes the Papa Ajasco story richer is what happened in its aftermath. Ogunrombi did not leave the situation with bitterness. Instead, he became an unlikely bridge between the two sides. Stephen-Imobhio confirmed that when there were tensions between Ayoyinka and Wale Adenuga, it was Ogunrombi who stepped in to mediate. He helped facilitate a resolution that allowed Ayoyinka to be reinstated, demonstrating a generosity of spirit that his colleagues repeatedly cited as one of his defining traits.
He went back to his role at PEFTI Film Institute without complaint, continuing the educational work that had always been at the core of who he was.
Life Beyond Papa Ajasco — Films, Teaching, and Stage
While the Papa Ajasco role earned Ogunrombi his widest public recognition, his body of work extended well beyond that single character. As an actor in films, he appeared in Aramotu in 2010, Heroes and Zeros in 2012, and Daylight News in 2014. He also appeared in the beloved Nigerian TV series Super Story and contributed to various stage productions throughout his career, operating fluidly between screen and theatre.
His voice and musical talent also made him a sought-after contributor to film and television soundtracks. He sang the theme song for the television soap The Household, produced by his longtime friend Osezua Stephen-Imobhio. He was involved in the soundtrack of an unreleased film at the time of his death, a project that colleagues confirmed demonstrated his remarkable command of musical theory and arrangement.
As an educator, he served as a music lecturer at 10 Strings Music School in Ikeja, Lagos, where he poured his knowledge into the next generation of Nigerian musicians. Lucky Alex described him as someone who taught both the young and the old, never treating the classroom as beneath him no matter what heights he had reached professionally.
He was passionate about the role of creative arts in Nigerian schools, once saying that if creative arts could be encouraged in government schools, Nigerian children would be able to build a solid entertainment sector for the future.
Awards, Recognitions, and the North Korea Achievement
Femi Ogunrombi received recognition from multiple corners of the arts world throughout his career. He was the recipient of several local and international awards, the most notable of which came in 1995 when he was awarded a gold plaque and a Diploma Certificate in Creative Composition in North Korea. The award was given for his performance of a song in the Korean language, an achievement that Lucky Alex described by saying Ogunrombi was the first Nigerian to ever sing in the Pyongyang language. The feat spoke to his extraordinary ear for language, phonetics, and musical adaptation.
Personal Life — Faith, Family, and the Man Behind the Character
Away from the public eye, Femi Ogunrombi was a man of quiet faith and deep personal loyalty. He was a committed Seventh Day Adventist who served as the organist in his church choir, attending services faithfully even through the busiest periods of his career. His religious life was not a performance; it was, by the accounts of those who knew him, the foundation of how he treated other people.
He was a husband and a father to three daughters. His wife predeceased him, and he raised his daughters through loss and continued to maintain close relationships with them up until his final days. His friend Stephen-Imobhio grew so close to the family that he considered the daughters his own, a reflection of the warmth and openness with which Ogunrombi approached every relationship in his life.
Stephen-Imobhio recalled that in the years before they had mobile phones, Ogunrombi would drive across Lagos the moment he heard a friend was ill, arriving with food, care, and company. He once told a bachelor friend lying sick with malaria: “You have no wife nor children yet and you’re not feeling fine. I can’t just leave you alone.” That was the kind of man he was.
Final Days, Death, and the Media Confusion That Followed
In the weeks before Christmas 2022, Femi Ogunrombi fell ill. He was unable to go to his classroom for approximately three weeks. Close friends who visited him found a man who was exhausted but still engaged, still himself. He was eventually taken to the Teaching Hospital at Babcock University in Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, where he passed away on Saturday, 14 January 2023.
He was 65 years old.
Theatre practitioner and journalist Husseini Shaibu was among the first to announce his passing on Twitter, describing him as an ethnomusicologist, former Music Instructor with the National Troupe, and one-time stand-in for the Papa Ajasco character. The announcement set off an immediate wave of tributes from across the Nigerian entertainment industry.
However, his death also triggered one of the more unfortunate episodes in Nigerian media in recent memory. In the rush to report his passing, multiple major media houses and social media accounts attached the wrong photograph to their coverage, using images of Richard Abiodun Ayoyinka, the original and better-known Papa Ajasco, rather than Ogunrombi himself. The confusion stemmed from the fact that the two men had shared the same character name, and many journalists and editors did not know the difference between them. The episode highlighted the broader challenge Nigerian media faces in preserving and accurately representing its own entertainment history.
Legacy — What Femi Ogunrombi Meant to Nigerian Entertainment
To reduce Femi Ogunrombi to Papa Ajasco is to miss most of what he was. He was a man who walked away from medical security to chase something he believed in. He built choral groups that became institutional landmarks. He climbed the ranks of Nigeria’s National Troupe, started a national choir, and then walked away from government comfort to keep creating. He taught music to anyone willing to learn. He acted in films and on stage. He mediated disputes he had no obligation to resolve. He sang in the language of a country most Nigerians will never visit.
Those who worked alongside him used words like selfless, principled, generous, and meticulous. Lucky Alex put it simply: he reached out to everyone. Stephen-Imobhio said the industry is losing people who understood music not just as sound but as craft, people who could walk into a studio knowing every theory and its intricacy.
Ogunrombi was one of those rare individuals who could have been content with a comfortable medical career but chose instead to spend his life in the demanding, uncertain, and often underappreciated world of Nigerian arts. That choice produced five decades of contribution that touched choral music, ethnomusicology, film, television, theatre, cultural policy, and education.
He leaves behind three daughters, a body of work across multiple disciplines, and a memory that, for those who knew him, will never require a photograph to confirm.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What was Femi Ogunrombi’s real name? His full birth name was Taiwo Olufemi Ogunrombi. Taiwo is a traditional Yoruba name given to the firstborn of a set of twins.
When and where was Femi Ogunrombi born? He was born in 1957. His exact state of origin has not been widely documented, but his career was largely centred in Lagos and Ile-Ife.
How old was Femi Ogunrombi when he died? He was 65 years old. He passed away on 14 January 2023.
What was the cause of Femi Ogunrombi’s death? He died after a brief battle with an undisclosed illness. He passed away at the Teaching Hospital at Babcock University in Ogun State.
Was Femi Ogunrombi really a nurse? Yes. He trained as a registered nurse in 1975 and practised at the General Hospital in Ikeja, Lagos, where he was attached to the Accident and Emergency unit. He later worked as an industrial medical officer before leaving the healthcare field to pursue his arts career full time.
Who is the real Papa Ajasco — Femi Ogunrombi or Abiodun Ayoyinka? Richard Abiodun Ayoyinka was the original and long-running Papa Ajasco. Femi Ogunrombi stepped into the role temporarily for about two years from 2006 when a dispute arose between Ayoyinka and the production company. When the dispute was resolved, Ayoyinka returned to the role.
Did Femi Ogunrombi have children? Yes. He had three daughters. His wife predeceased him. His daughters were close to him until his final days.
What movies did Femi Ogunrombi act in? He appeared in Aramotu (2010), Heroes and Zeros (2012), and Daylight News (2014), among other productions. He also appeared in the TV series Super Story and contributed to several stage productions throughout his career.
What was the Ayoro Voices? The Ayoro Voices was a performing choral group that Femi Ogunrombi founded and conducted at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) between 1980 and 1984. The group became the cultural image of OAU and secured appearances on BCOS, OGTV, and NTA Ibadan.
What was Femi Ogunrombi’s famous international award? In 1995, he was awarded a gold plaque and a Diploma Certificate in Creative Composition in North Korea, after performing a song in the Korean language. He is said to be the first Nigerian to ever sing in the Pyongyang language.