MAURICE ARCHIBONG 
Although he passed on February 15, the 
memory of Gani Odutokun continues to rankle 
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 people 
do not recognise 
him the first time. 
Gani (as he was 
fondly called) was 
a familiar name 
both locally and 
overseas as an accomplished 
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 physique 
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 opening 
of many major exhibitions. 
Coincidentally 
most 
of these 
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 opening 
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 Alliance 
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 
Udechukwu, 
among others, 
who had come 
as external examiners. 
Prof. 
Okeke had left 
earlier in the 
day and Prof. 
Udechukwu 
would be 
leaving the 
next morning. 
During 
the brief 
rendezvous 
by 
way of a 
send-off in 
honour of 
Obiora at the 
Senior Staff 
Club the 
w r i t e r 
would once 
again enjoy 
the privilege 
of sharing 
a table 
with some of 
Nigeria's more famous 
and celebrated 
academics, as they 
reminisced about their 
student days at the ABU 
n
(Prof. Udechukwu would have been another 
product of the same school but for the civil 
war). 
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 
Saturday, February 10 1995 products of the 
efforts of the participants in both exercises 
came on view at Goethe Institut Lagos. 
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 (transient 
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 attitude 
that evening. He was unusually cheerful, 
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 engaged 
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 
reference to my ubiquitous presence wherever 
a show was on. This led me to ask him the cause 
of Mr. Bolaji Doherty's death. 
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 photographs 
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 
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