It’s been a pretty sad week, Nigerians were plunged into mourning as not one but two notable elderly veterans passed away.
A few hours after popular highlife musician Fatai Rolling Dollar passed away on June 12, 2013, another notable Nigerian Pa Benedict Odiase, the man who composed Nigeria’s National Anthem passed away.
Reports say Odiase, 52, passed away on Tuesday night. While many media reports say he passed on in his sleep at his Oregun, Lagos home, family sources say he was rushed to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) where he gave up the ghost. He was 79.
Odiase wrote and composed Nigeria’s National Anthem, Arise O Compatriots, in May 1978.