major shows involved products of the Zaria
School  of Art; even  though many  of them
have found  their berth far away from their
alma mater. One such occasion was the open-
ing of an exhibition  featuring  paintings by
Prof.  Uche  Okeke  at the German  cultural
centre (Goethe Institut) in 1993 to celebrate
the artist's sixtieth birthday.

Although his hands were always full, Gani
would squeeze out time to be there but at the
opening of Mu'azu M. Sani's show at Alli-
ance  Francaise  Kaduna  on  June  15 Gani
wasn't there. At the Goethe Institut last July
8  when  Mrs. Albertsen  - Marton  formally
handed over to her successor Richard Lang,
Gani  wasn't  there either.  He  couldn't  be
for  he

was now no more.

Its hard not to remember the good moments
shared together and this is often one  reason
we miss a departed friend  so. I had gone to
Zaria this last June to inteiview Prof. Jimo
Akolo who turned sixty on September 20. As
I descended  the spiral  stairway  within the
DFA building where Gani' s office used to be
I felt a peculiar hollowness. Having arrived
rather late in the day about 7 p.m. I wasn't
banking on meeting the lecturers I sought but
there was always achance. By a hair's breadth
I had missed Jerry Buhari, I was told. Jerry
Buhari, Tonie Okpe, Kefas  Danjuma, Prof.
Jimo Akolo, Mu'azu Sani, these and others I
could reach within the next twenty-four hours
sepabus paribus (all things being equal) but
Gani I would never see again on this plane:

it was a hurting feeling.

Before this visit, the last time I
was at Samani, about a year
earlier July 1994,1 had left
a  much  happier  person.
My  arrival  coincided
with the presence of
Professors  Uche
Okeke and Obiora
U d e c h u k w u,
among  others,
who  had come
as external ex-
aminers. Prof.
Okeke had left
earlier in the
day and Prof.
Udechukwu
would  be
leaving the
next morn-
ing. During
the  brief
r e n d e z-
vous  by
way  of  a
send-off  in
honour  of
Obiora at the
Senior Staff
Club 
the
w r i t er
would once
again enjoy
the  privi-
lege of shar-
ing  a  table
with  some of
Nigeria's more fa-
mous  and celebrated
academics,  as  they
reminisced  about  their
student days at the ABU

n

MAURICE ARCHIBONG

Although  he  passed  on  February  15, the
memory of Gani Odutokun continues to ran-
kle  in our minds. Had he lived,  he would
have  turned  forty-nine  on  August  9. The
deceased was not a kill-joy and why we
got robbed of one chance to smile
even  in this  pallid  ambience is
hard to tell: Gani left 21 years
short of the prescribed three
scores and ten.

It is difficult to recall the
first time you met Gan i
Odutokun.  Come  to
think of it many peo-
ple do not recognise
him  the first time.
Gani  (as  he  was
fondly called) was
a  familiar  name
both  locally  and
overseas  as an ac-
complished  painter
who had also risen to
the position of Head,
Department of Fi ne An
(DFA)  Ahmadu  Bello
University.

On the other hand Gani' s phy-
sique was not reflective  of his
immense  professional  stature; a
man  of  diminutive  frame  coupled
with an hearing aid to his right ear and
three strokes of tribal mark on each
cheek, Gani could have passed for
anybody and for many who had not
known him already it was difficult
to tie the person with the name.

Until March 15,1995 you could
count on Gani for being one
of the viewers at the open-
ing of many major ex-
hibitions.  Coinci-
dentally  most
of 

these

(Prof. Udechukwu  would have been another
product  of the  same  school  but for  the  civil
war).

Saturday, February  10 1995 products of the
efforts  of  the  participants  in  both  exercises
came on view at Goethe Institut Lagos.

reference  to my ubiquitous presence  wherever
a show was on. This led me to ask him the cause
of Mr. Bolaji  Doherty's  death.

From this meeting and others which  offered
a view of Gani at close quarters one can recall
his gesticulations and echoes of Gani' s hearty
but subdued  laughter.

Although he appeared a man of  irrepressible
spirit he had his low periods too. Clad in his
usual simple Safari  suit he hissed  resignedly
at the price which he weekly had to spend on
petrol  to  run  his  car.  An  unselfish  man  he
wasn't  only  concerned  about  himself:  at
N2.000  for  fifty  litre  volume  he  could  no
more offer  lift  to half as many colleagues as
he used  to. This  was in the thick  of the  fuel
scarcity  which  plagued  the  nation  for  the
better  half  of  1994  consequent  upon  the
treacherous  political  distortion  of  June
23,1993.

The  astronomical  fuel  price,  however,  did
not deter Gani from driving me all the way to
Zaria  motor  Park  which  is quite  a  distance
from  Samaru.

It is impossible  to  forget  the  last  time I met
Gani. An Austrian  sculptor Josef  Beier  had
come from Linz to conduct two workshops in
Nigeria.

Beier's  first  workshop  was  at  the  Ahmadu
Bello  University,  Zaria  while  the  second
held at the Yaba College  of Technology, on

When Gani and his crew had not arrived by
6  p.m.  of  February  8  (two  days  before  the
opening) there was apprehension  within  the
art  circuit;  more  so  when  we  had  gathered
that Gani and some five others had since  left
Zaria by road  for Lagos.

However the next morning to our relief (tran-
sient as it turned out to be) Gani et al arrived
same day  but late in the night  we were  told.

The show  opened  as  scheduled.  But  before
the opening one noticed an unusual  frequency
in prayer on the part of the technician. It was
as  if  he  had  a  premonition  of  what  was
coming.

Another hint could have been  in Gani's atti-
tude  that evening.  He  was  unusually  cheer-
ful,  it  was  as  though  he  had  foreseen  his
liberation  from  the  mundane  drudgery  we
call life. Even his sculptures were coated in
uncharacteristically  bright  colours.

As it typical of time which flies when you are
having fun; soon it was time to go home.

Before  departure  time  however  I  had  en-
gaged Gani in a brief chat as had come to be
our practice in the last five years.

Gani bad asked me how I managed. It was a

Bolaji Doherty, an architect had run the famous
Avant Garde  gallery  in Kaduna.  Avant  Garde
wasn't just another needle in a hay stack, it was
like an oasis in a desert and I had been there to
see the opening  of Themes and  Schemes,  an
exhibition  of  paintings,  drawings  and  photo-
graphs by Jerry Buhari, Akin Afuwape  and an
Italian  Ezio Marizol  last December  9.

Bolaji  Doherty  couldn't  have  looked  livelier;
he was there but by January  he had passed  on.
What  happened?  I lamented  to Gani  who told
me that he was not sure, but promised  to keep
me posted  on his return  to Zaria.

As  fate  would  have  it  barely  five  days  later
words  came  as  if  in  a  nightmare  that  Gani
Odutokun  had passed  on  in a car crash  which
also claimed the lives of Dr. Hattie Hilliard an
American  visiting  lecturer  at  the  ABU,  Ms,
Ester  Ada  Onyilo  another  lecturer  and  the
prayerful  technician.

You  begin  to  wonder  why  they  had  to  travel
when  they did. Would  they be alive today  had
they gone by another  means?

If they  had  to go  so that  what  will  be may  be
(Quelle Sera,  Sera) I still  find  myself  seeking
solace in the proverb that  'good men must die
but  death  cannot  kill  their  names'.  Adieu
Gani.GR

76