AFTER nearly two years of waiting, two nail-biting years during which one dreaded when the news would finally come following the initial announcement of his body’s succumbing to the onslaught of an unusual lung cancer for a non-smoker- after this long wait, the news came at last on Saturday, September 5, that the cock had finally crowed for Gani Fawehinmi.

GANI Fawehinmi was a special Nigerian both in life and death. Many people were born to be copycats. They abound everywhere, particularly among so-called opinion leaders. They are unable to produce unique and insightful ideas. But because they have the gift of the gab and the elevated platform to demonstrate it, they pass for intelligent or intellectual people.

September 6 was a terrible day in the history of Nigeria football. It was a day confidence was buried alive and a buried “hope” was exhumed, becoming a bride courted by Nigerians from Maiduguri to Uyo. September 6, our World Cup qualification was put in dire straits, to say the least.

Media reports indicated that such auditors were indeed deployed to the banks late in 2008, shortly before expiration of Soludo’s five-year term; however, it would seem that these auditors failed woefully in alerting the nation of the inebriate state of the banks! Indeed, possibly based on the incorrect reports filed back, or in spite of the ugly reality, the former CBN Governor boasted that Nigerian banks were stronger than ever and could readily support the government if the effects of the global recession approached our shores!

I never knew Gani Fawehinmi in a deep and personal way, but he was of course, rested somewhere in my consciousness, as I’m sure he does in the consciousness of any Nigerian of my generation, as an inevitable testimony of true acts of public heroism. He was indeed the hero of the silent unrepresented; those we love to call the masses. He, therefore, somehow, seemed to belong to all of us.