ADIEU, AYO FASANMI

 

  Senator Ayo Fasanmi – a titan is gone! I received with shock, but submission to the will of God the news of the passage of Senator Ayorinde Fasanmi, which occurred on Thursday July 30, 2020. He was 94 years old. The titan is gone! Pa Fasanmi was the ideal Nigerian and quintessential Yoruba Omoluabi. He trained and practiced as a pharmacist and rose to the pinnacle of the profession when he was elected the National President of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria in 1977. But he emerged from the cocoon of the pharmaceutical industry into national limelight in 1979 when he was elected into the Nigerian Senate of the short-lived Second Republic. Before then, he had been in the House of Representatives in the First Republic. He was also a delegate to the Constitutional Conference of 1994. Though a native of Iye-Ekiti in Ekiti State, he lived his adult life in Osogbo, where he took permanent residence and was well regarded as a leader. He would be counted among those instrumenta...

M Y INDEFATIGABLE BOSS HAS GONE! I don't know where I can start writing about my 13 years journey with you Baba. I am so full of words. Baba, knowing you is an opportunity, working with you is a grace. I could remember the day I came for an interview, we were 3 in number, at the present of all of us, you mentioned my name, you said, “Tope my spirit work with you” and we started the journey. Throughout my 13 years with you I never regretted working with you, because you knew when I was happy and when I was rather depressed. You took me to where I never thought I could be in life. Baba, you made me seat with Governors, through you, I ate with Mr. President, through you I sat with kings and interacted with the top people in the country. I learnt a lot from you. Your humility was second to none. You trained me on how to be disciplined, you trained me how to respect leaders in the party. You said if I am interested in politics I should follow your footsteps by staying in progressi...

DOWN MEMORY LANE I have a medley of poignant memories in respect of Pa Ayo Fasanmi, the quintessentially celebrated Nigerian statesman, and Patriarch who has just left us. Where do I start? Perhaps some 35 years ago when I used to be a fairly regular visitor to their house in Osogbo, thanks to my early friendship with one of the great man's sons.  (We went to the University together). We were of course quite young then and I was always overawed  in the presence of Papa Fasanmi. He respected my own father (SL Bolaji) who at the time was a well known editor of Nigerian newspapers,  cum author. Though of course even in those days, Pa Fasanmi ( below) always went out of his way to be very friendly with us anytime he came across us.   I  remember when the Nigerian journalist and magazine aficionado, Dele Giwa was brutally killed in 1986. By a coincidence, I was in the Fasanmi residence that night in Osogbo when the drama unfolded. It was Senator Fasanmi...

  PROFILE OF CHIEF (SEN) AYO FASANMI Chief Ayo Fasanmi was born on September 27, 1925. His father was Late Pa Joseph Fadahunsi   Fasanmi who hailed from Iye-Ekiti in ilejemeje Local Government, while his mother, Late Madam Aina   Erungbemika hailed from Ijero-Ekiti where she later became the Eyegun ( Traditional head of the women in ijero-Ekiti Local Government ). Chief Ayo Fasanmi had his primary education in Lagos, Ibadan and Offa. In 1942, Ayo gained government scholarship to Government college, Ibadan where he was until 1947 after passing his Senior Cambridge examination with exemption from London Matriculation. Later in 1947 Ayo entered the school of Pharmacy, Yaba where he remained till 1950 after qualification as a Pharmacist. As a Pharmacist, Ayo worked in the following hospitals: General Hospital, Lagos                          ...