Gani

Is that true?
This is a sad day.
This man I started hearing his name since I was a tot.
Oh dear.
May his family be consoled and may his brave soul rest in peace.

Source, please!!!!

Yeah source please, because this is really breaking my heart.   

Different strokes for different folks
By Femi Adesina [ kulikulii@yahoo.com ]
Saturday, April 26, 2008

Two celebrations occurred within the week. And incidentally, the people at the very centres of it are from Ondo town, in Ondo State. They both turned 70 within two days of each other. Legal luminary, Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN) and top public relations specialist and former Minister of Information, Sir Chief Alex Akinyele.

At Gani Fawehinmi’s birthday party on Tuesday, the man was conspicuously absent. Why? He’s in a London hospital, battling lung cancer. For about a year now, the lawyer and human rights activist has spent more time in the hospital than out of it. Uniquely, however, his 70th birthday was graced not just by friends, relations and colleagues from the human rights community, but by those you can call the flotsam and jetsam of society. The blind, the lame, deaf, dumb, and generally destitute persons. It was a birthday party with a difference.

As you read this, Chief Alex Akinyele is holding a birthday thanksgiving service at the Anglican Church in Ondo. On Thursday, which was the actual day he turned 70, a book had been launched in his honour, and the Alex Akinyele Plaza was commissioned by no less a person than former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. Truly, it’s different strokes for different folks.

When you look at the paradoxes of Fawehinmi and Akinyele at 70, you know that life can be baffling, confounding, enigmatic and puzzling. Two people from exactly the same background, born two days apart into poor families, and who through a combination of grace, luck and hard work, pulled themselves up by their boot straps, to get to the very top of their professions. You cannot write the history of the legal profession in Nigeria without Gani Fawehinmi being given prodigious mention.

Neither can the story of public relations be told without Alex Akinyele being mentioned as one of the very fathers. Now, see how fate has treated them differently at 70. Right was the Abami Eda, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti when he described life as a “bitch.” This bitch of a life. It gives you something with one hand, and takes away something with the other. It gave Gani professional success and acclaim, and at the critical period, took away his lungs. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Oh, life, you can be so cruel.

Remember the football coach, Theophilus Adeyemi Tella? Last September, he led the Golden Eaglets to win the World Cup in Korea. The world was at his feet, so we thought. One month later, he was dead. Of lung cancer. I did a piece then, with the title, ‘Tella: This bitch of a life.’ Permit me to quote a portion from that October 27, 2007 column, as it fits the issue at hand:
“Tella came back home, got cash gifts, a house, and many other rewards from an appreciative nation. At that point, it seemed the world was his oyster. At only 56, he could still coach different teams for the next 20 years. From obscurity to stardom. From anonymity to global centrestage. But Bernard Shaw was right when he said, “there are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire, the other is to get it.” Tella got his heart’s desire, and he also lost it. Few days after the triumphal return, he was at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) battling a relapse of the lung cancer. Triumph and Disaster, those two impostors (Rudyard Kipling) had teamed up to deal him a deadly blow.”

Crocodile tears? Some people may accuse me of celebrating Gani after I had excoriated him in a September 29, 2007 piece entitled ‘Once upon a Gani Fawehinmi.’ Yes, I accused him of ‘too know,’ that he had made himself supreme to the Supreme Court, that he had lost the virtues, ideals that made him our hero in the past. I said his support for Nuhu Ribadu, the then boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) bordered on zealotry, fanaticism, obsession. Yes, I still stand by all those. But lung cancer? You dare not wish anybody that evil. Not to Gani, not to anybody. Poor life. Bitchy life. Malicious life. Is that the reward Gani deserves from you after about 40 years of suffering in many prisons so that the rights of the average Nigerian will be guaranteed and preserved?

Akinyele too. Don’t think he got his 70 on a platter of gold. He virtually got it by the whiskers, by the edge of his luxuriant moustache. He told Daily Sun in an interview that between 2005 and 2007, he underwent four surgeries in foreign hospitals. And he added what I think is food for thought: “You don’t become 70 because you eat well, or live well, or because you cared so well for your life. You reach 70 only by divine grace.” May that grace be available to us all. Say amen, somebody.

Fawehinmi and Akinyele have so many things in common. Yet, they are this-similar in very many other ways. I remember when Stella Obasanjo died on the surgery table abroad in 2005. News filtered into the country that it was in the process of procuring an abdominoplasty, popularly called tummy tuck, so that she could look stunning during her impending 60th birthday. The rumour was everywhere, but nobody verbalized it, maybe because of deference to the dead, or fear of the emperor in power. Until Gani came with a lengthy press statement, asking President Olusegun Obasanjo to clear the air on the cause of death of his wife. Most newspapers tucked the piece inside, but Daily Sun made it a cover choice. It became a major issue. So riled was Akinyele by what he described as Fawehinmi’s indiscretion and insensitivity that he called his Ondo compatriot all sorts of names. Trust Gani, he released his own scud missiles. It became real roforofo, and their paramount ruler, the Osemawe of Ondo, had to call for a truce. I did a piece on it then. The title was, ‘Ondo boys at war.’

Fierce loyalty. That is a hallmark of both people. Gani idolizes, nay worships Nuhu Ribadu and the anti-corruption war. Don’t say any evil of Ibrahim Babangida, or you have Akinyele to contend with. Ever loyal to the man who gave Ondo town its first minister ever.
Controversy. The two Ondo ‘boys’ love it. When there is a river of contention to jump into, they never tarry at the bank. They dive in with a mighty splash. There must be something in the water they drank as babies in Ondo that makes them so bold.
And this clincher of a similarity. They are no mean men where the opposite sex is concerned. Those close to Gani says he calls them “lubricants of the revolution,” and he has at least two official wives. Well, his religion permits it. Akinyele too has had three official wives, but he now says at 70, playing days are over. May it be so.

The Ondo ‘boys’ have made their marks. We can only pray that life will treat them much more kindly in the days and years ahead. Gani Fawehinmi particularly needs a divine touch now. May he get it. Amen.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/columnists/femi/2008/femi-apr-26-2008.htm

You dey craze

Oh my God
Michael Bolton@ stillwater.
He is the only white man I find attractive.


back to Gani
The article says he had lung cancer,I didn't read where they said he died

and obasanjo, atiku, babangida, bamaiyi, useni and other rogues are waxing stronger.

Anyway its a sign that finally the 50-60s generation are slowly dying out before our very eyes.

Both of them should just go. There is very little difference between a thief and an inept but honest man.

What is the veracity of this claim?

The author should contradict himself and say it not true.

Don't bury a man before he dies.

please source

@Big B1

Coupling Gani and Akinyele in he same article does a great disservice to Gani.

One is a man of principles, the other is a washed out loudmouthed sycophant and the only other people who should be in
an article with Akinyele are the likes of Bisi Olatilo and suchlike

How can somebody start a thread of this nature when its not correct.
Hope its a joke anyway but its gone too far to be a joke.

I reject this story in jesus name.

I think this is a rude and insulting rumour.  Provide a source or Edit the Topic  right now!!

I beleive the house deserves an apology from the poster for this thread

If this "story" is untrue, then i think Seun should take action against the poster.

It is NOT funny spreading rumours about people's alleged "deaths". It is unscrupulous and shows a lack of credibility.  One of the rules of this forum is to post a link about any story.

@poster
YOU'RE AN IDIOT FOR POSTING SUCH A VICIOUS RUMOUR _{DO YOU REALLY WISH HIM DEAD} , WHATS WORSE IS THAT PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY BUYING IT.