Help! Fatai Rolling Dollar needs N29,000 for hospital bill
Fatai Rolling Dollar on sick bed
One of Nigeria’s oldest and most prolific musicians was yet to leave Ahmadiyya Hospital because he has been unable to come up with N29,000, balance of his hospital bill – a paltry sum for a musician of his calibre and a situation which may keep the octogenarian in the hospital longer.
According to initial revelations by the octogenarian artiste during a telephone conversation with Friday Flavour on Wednesday afternoon, he made known that he would require N50,000 to pay off the bill for which he had been accruing N3,000 daily on bed charges alone, besides medical treatment.
However, during yesterday’s visit, it was discovered that he had somehow raised N21,000, leaving a balance of N29,000. “I’m not a fraudulent person otherwise I would have said I needed N300,000.
This is the truth, I do not have the money.” Although the doctors were busy with a deluge of patients to confirm the precise nature of Dollar’s illness, the old musician said while on tour in Maryland, USA he started experiencing severe pain in the thigh section of his legs reaching into the bones.
He was taken to a hospital in Maryland struggling to breathe; he explained this could have come about because of pneumonia. Rolling Dollar said when the pain started he could not even bring himself to eat. “I was to perform for 10 minutes at a naming ceremony in Maryland.
I went on stage and performed even though the money was not given to me. When I finished performing and went to sit down, my body was no longer normal. I told somebody to take me to the car and put on the heater. It was about 3.00 a.m. and that was where I started feeling the pain in my leg. It was very cold in America then”, he explained. He managed to return home to Nigeria by May 17.
His wife, Zainab who has kept vigil at his hospital bedside, said when he came back from the tour, he was looking like a skeleton. The doctors at Ahmadiyya may have given him a clean bill of health, but it is doubtful the easygoing musician is fully recovered. Fatai Rolling Dollar has another challenge to contend with. Not only does he need money to pay his hospital bill, he also needs to continue therapy or even get a second opinion on the nature of his illness.
“I don’t feel pain in my legs or chest anymore”, a whispering Rolling Dollar assured our reporter as he lay on his bed in a private room at the hospital. Rolling Dollar had gone on a musical tour of Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Texas. Unfortunately, he was to perform only in Maryland and New York.
“The shows were to hold in New York, Maryland, New Jersey and Texas but only New York and Maryland held. New York went bad and I was not even paid for the show there”, the octogenarian lamented.
This is because trouble broke out and some people made away with the money, including, he said, Atawewe, a Nigerian fuji musician that performed at the event, duping even the promoter, Mr. Samson Raji. Which Atawewe, the same Nigerian musician? “The same Atawewe”, he said.
“They beat up the promoter in the confusion and, for two days, he could not see. I told him I did not want to be on tour with a fuji musician”. Reached on the telephone, Mr. Raji said because Rolling Dollar is a musician he respects greatly that is why he took him to launch the maiden edition of the Nigerian Carnival in America. “Rolling Dollar and Atawewe launched the carnival successfully, but Rolling Dollar fell ill and could not perform the rest of the shows”, he said.
Reminded that he has not gone to see the musician in hospital, he said he would be going to visit him on Friday morning (today). When asked to react to the allegation that trouble erupted during the New York show, he said he would rather not continue speaking. “Please let us talk about that face to face. I will be available tomorrow”, he said. Some celebrities and artistes have begun to show support for the veteran artiste.
During Friday Flavour’s visit on Thursday, musician and MTN Project Fame judge, Ade Bantu, was also there. He was visibly pained by Rolling Dollar’s condition. Ade Bantu said the rigours of the trip must have been responsible for the condition. “For an 87-year-old man, he ought to have been treated with more care”, he said. The musician, who is known to be friends with the Lagos State Government, was asked if the state has done anything for him since he fell ill and the reply was no. “I was close to the former governor, Bola Tinubu, but I don’t have his contact anymore. The man loves me”, he said.
Born Fatai Olayiwola Olagunju on July 22, 1926 to the family of late Chief Olagunju in Ede, Osun State. He started his musical career in 1953 and has trained many professional musicians, such as Evangelist Ebenezer Obey, late Dr. Orlando Owoh and Bob Aladeniyi, among others. In 2011, National Mirror began a campaign to have him immortalised in the Guinness World Records as the World’s Oldest Performing Musician (Male). Until this illness, Dollar performed regularly at O’Jez Restaurant at the National Stadium, Lagos.
Source: National Mirror
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