Four days after the 80th birthday was celebrated, Fabio Lanipekun, an accomplished sports journalist has died.
An NTA official close to the family confirmed the passing on of the highly respected journalist . His death is coming just a week after another iconic sports journalist, Sunny Emmanuel Ojagbaese died in the United States.
This was a quarter-final match between Nigerian and the Soviet Union at the 1989 FIFA Under 20 World Championship in Saudi Arabia. The Soviet Union was leading 4-0 in the 60th minute when Nigeria began its fight back. A pair of freekick goals by Christopher Ohenhen (61st and 75th minutes) and goals by Samuel Elijah (83rd minute) and captain Nduka Ugbade (84th minute) made the scores 4-4 at full time. Dimeji Lawal missed a chance to give Nigeria victory before full time. It went to penalties and Samuel Elijah defeated the Prophets of Baal to score the winning freekick for Nigeria.
Oleg Salenko, who scored one of the goals for the Soviet Union, scored a record 5 goals for Russia in the 6-1 victory over Cameroon in the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
The NTA did not show the matches live because they were played in the middle of the afternoon (Nigerian time). The whole country was hooked on Radio Nigeria for commentaries of the matches. However, NTA showed the matches later at night at 10pm.
This is a clip of the NTA's coverage of the Miracle of Dammam and your commentator is Fabio Lanipekun and the co-commentator is Charles Ojugbana.
This was one of the funniest things that I remember about Saudi '89. We were going from Glover Road, Ikoyi towards Obalende when Nigeria scored a goal. We got to Kingsway Road and the traffic warden stopped us right in the middle of the road. "Who scored? What's the scores"? he shouted. We told him that Nigeria had scored and Nigeria was leading and the man started dancing right in the middle of the road.
79 cheers for Fabio Lanipekun, the encyclopaedia of Nigerian sports
By Segun Odegbami 13 March 2021
1989 It was an encounter of the rarest kind.
YOU just do not get to meet with 3 of the greatest sportscasters in Nigerian history in one place, for an entire week, talking food, family, and football. It rarely happens like that.
But that was what happened to me in 1989. Thinking about it now, I was a bit naive. I could have made the bigger capital of the meeting offered by properly documenting it for history. I didn’t and memory fades and fails with time. It has been almost 32 years since then. Don’t blame me, I was a rookie journalist.
It was my very first assignment as an ‘untrained’ reporter. I say so because I never had any formal training as a journalist even though I had been writing a column in the Sunday Tribune 10 years before, since 1979, at the height of my football career.
Banji Ogundele, previously of the Daily Times, had moved to Ibadan to take up his new appointment as Editor of Sunday Tribune. He kicked it all off when he saw some of my work (writing and illustrating) as the editor of a campus magazine when I was at the Polytechnic, and suggested that I could pen my peculiar football experiences in a special column in his weekend newspaper.
It sounded interesting and I took up the challenge. That’s how I became, probably, the first African football player to maintain a newspaper column.
That was my baptism into journalism, providing a footballer’s perspective of things on and off the football field.
Banji had been my friend in Lagos, one of a group of renowned journalists around ‘sports city’. I don’t recall who made the connection, but I was welcomed into their fold and integrated seamlessly into their social circuit, a completely different world from the football field. The group included Dayo Sobowale, Yinka Craig, Toyin Makanju, Philip Phil Ebosie, Tunde Oloyede, and so on. It was an honour and a privilege to walk in their circle.
That was how Banji made me bite the writing bug, and I started to write without any formal compass.
By 1989 when I arrived the Scottish City of Glasgow and ran into the trio of Tolu Fatoyinbo, Ernest Okonkwo, (both, sports commentators in Radio Nigeria), and Fabio Lanipekun (television commentator in NTA), I had ended my football career five years before, practised as a Senior Industrial Engineer for 2 years at the Western State Industrial Investment and Credit Corporation, WSIICC (from 1984 to 1986) and joined Sunny Obazu-Ojeagbase (S.O) as a columnist in the bouquet of sports publications from his stable since 1984. I was a writer, not a reporter.
So, when the FIFA Under-17 Championship in Glasgow came along in 1989, although I was not originally scheduled to attend, having secured a work permit to reside and work in the UK, and secured part-sponsorship of the trip, I convinced S.O that I should go in order to experience, first-hand, the world of sports reportage of an international event and to write about it from a football player’s angle.
That’s how I plunged into the deep end of sports journalism under the tutelage of S.O, and fulfilled my aspiration – observing and reporting the matches involving Nigeria’s Under-17 national team at that year’s FIFA Championship. The Nigerian team was loaded with very talented youngsters like Victor Ikpeba, Godwin Okpara, and others. They put up such a great show that Pele, who was a special guest of FIFA at the event, predicted that Nigerian youngsters would win the World Cup before the end of the last Century.
So, besides having my baptism as a reporter at a global event, the icing on the cake was the rare opportunity to share time and space, up close for several days, with three masters of radio and television broadcast in Nigeria at the championship.
For several days, I had unfettered access to them. I shared lunches and great conversations, mostly around his family, with Ernest Okonkwo. I went shopping a few times with Tolu Fatoyinbo as we discussed mostly social life in the Lagos and Ibadan axis. It was with Uncle Fabio, who rarely ventured out of the hotel except when he had to do his journalistic work at the stadium, that we had the most productive conversations on sports and television in the lounge of the hotel where we all stayed together.
Every time we all met together I would quietly just sit and listen to them share their incredible stories as they traveled the world covering all the major sporting events. It was a fascinating and invaluable experience.
It was that trip and my interaction with Uncle Fabio in particular that ignited my interest and incursion into the world of broadcasting – television.
My conversation with him about ‘Sports Spectacular’ on NTA, a sports program anchored by Chuka Momah and Yinka Craig, opened my eyes to the possibility of becoming only the second independently produced sports program on Nigerian television. Sports Spectacular, mostly great boxing fights from the past, was the first. Uncle Fabio told me I could be the second if I chose to go that way in sports journalism. He promised to guide and support me. That was the birthing of my interest and subsequent foray into television documentaries and production. When we returned to Nigeria, I visited him in the NTA sports office inside the National Stadium, in Surulere, Lagos.
Surrounded by tapes of sports events and matches from the past, he triggered my interest to retrieve some footages of my own matches. He gave me advise and support that eventually led to a career in television presentation and production.
Meanwhile, Chris Ebie, also of NTA, took me under his wings, offered me a 4-minute weekly slot on Livi Ajuonuma’s ‘The Sunday Show’ on NTA, to taught me how to present the sports segment which was mostly a pre-packaged American sports program called the ‘George Michael Sports Machine’.
Within a few short months after returning from Glasgow, I was deep in the heart of sports journalism, getting first-hand and on-the-job experiences in both television and the print media. But it was television that was more challenging, more glamorous, and much more rewarding.
Uncle Fabio’s ‘hands and legs were in my making. His mantras were strict disciple, moral uprightness, and professionalism.
He was also a great writer.
When I decided to write my first book, “The history of Nigerian Football -1960 to 1990” in 1991, it was to him I went for the contribution of the history of the media in Nigerian football. Within a week I had his script, a compelling read of the genesis and journey of the media in Nigerian sports.
After that experience, my visits to him became routine. He was a repository of information of the totality of Nigerian sports. He was always available to talk sports and grant interviews. He knew everything by heart, never consulting to extract names, dates, and events from his detailed mind. He was, indeed, a great encyçlopaedia of Nigerian sports. No wonder, he titled his own weekly column that he religiously maintained until recently, for decades in the Sunday Tribune, “The Grandmaster”. It was very apt.
Uncle Fabio offered me easy access to footage and tapes in the NTA archives and never held back anything or information that I needed.
Getting very close to him in 1989 in Glasgow was the opener to a new world in my life.
When I was to consult for Rod Hay, an Australian Film producer, in 1993 for the production of ‘The Sleeping Giants’ series, a global 6-part documentary on the 5 African countries that had qualified for the 1994 World Cup, Uncle Fabio was a rich and deep source of information for the documentary.
All those experiences deepened my relationship with him. I owe a great deal of my venture and success in television, in particular, to Fabio Lanipekun.
That’s why as the celebrations of his 79th birthday since the 2nd of March, I am joining millions of his fans and followers on television and his column in the newspaper, to wish him well.
It is very shocking that, although he was a recipient of the national sports merit award some years ago, the federal government has not found it worthy to give this pioneer of sportscasting on Nigerian television, this teacher and mentor of journalists, this encyclopedia of Nigerian sports history, this doyen of professional sports journalism, a national honour that could represent the country’s gratitude to a man that served sports, journalism and the country so well.
I hope that can still be done sooner rather than later.
This is a call to all those that drank from his well of tutelage to join in this clarion call.
They include several giants of the industry that still have a voice: Rotimi Bisiriyu, Tunde Orebiyi, Modele Sarafa- Yusuf, Mainasara Ilo, Yakubu Ibn Mohammed, Hameed Adio, Tayo Balogun, Paul Ogaji, Dele Ojeisèkpoba, Waheed Olagunju, Willy Sowho, Charles Ojugbana, Feyi Ogunduyile, Mainasara Ilo, Abdulrahman Ibn Mohammed, and other ‘adopted children like Chuka Momah, yours truly and others I may not be aware of in the sports-writing business.
Meanwhile, I wish Uncle Fabio Lanipekun good health and long life on the occasion of his 79th birthday.
Ace sports broadcaster, Fabio Lanipekun, dies at 80
By Kehinde Okeowo - March 7, 2022
Fabio Lanipekun joined the WNTV/WNBS after a brief spell at NBC Lagos, the forerunner to the present day NTA
Veteran broadcaster renowned for his football commentaries in his days at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Fabio Lanipekun, is dead. He died on Sunday at the age of 80.
The news of the death of the ace broadcaster was announced by his son Adesola Fabio Lanipekun Jnr, who broke the news via a WhatsApp chat with the Theniche newspaper.
He wrote ” Can you believe it? My dad passed away about 3 hours ago. It was like he waited for his 80th birthday to say goodbye”
His former colleague at NTA, Mrs. Modele Sarafa-Yusuf, described him as a wonderful boss while eulogising and announcing his death on her Facebook wall on Sunday.
“I mourn the death of my former boss and mentor, the legendary Fabio Lanipekun. He passed on today, four days after his 80th birthday.
“A cerebral, hardworking, and no-nonsense boss, Fabio encouraged my move from NTA Ibadan to the Headquarters (then in Lagos). He burnished my skills, taught me discipline and handwork, and gave us opportunities to shine, knowing as he did, that our light did not dim his own.
“I was with him on his 79th birthday along with some of my former colleagues but missed his 80th as I was declaring my governorship candidature on the same day.
“May God grant him sweet repose and bless his devoted wife and other family members,” she said.
Mr. Fabio Lanipekun has been a media practitioner since 1962 when he was a reporter with the now defunct Daily Express which was based in the Apogbon area on Lagos Island.
He is one of the earliest Nigerian media practitioners to train specifically in sports journalism.
He joined the WNTV/WNBS (Western Nigeria Television/Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service) after a brief spell at the NBC Lagos (Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation), the forerunner to the present day Nigeria Television Authority (NTA).
He started as a newspaper reporter before switching to television. He had a mentor in David Coleman, an English sports commentator in BBC. David Coleman who died nine years ago.
The sports world will surely miss the legendary sports broadcaster. Fabio Lanipekun, who many called the grandmaster, while others call him the encyclopedia of sports.
naptu2: This was one of the funniest things that I remember about Saudi '89. We were going from Glover Road, Ikoyi towards Obalende when Nigeria scored a goal. We got to Kingsway Road and the traffic warden stopped us right in the middle of the road. "Who scored? What's the scores"? he shouted. We told him that Nigeria had scored and Nigeria was leading and the man started dancing right in the middle of the road.
This was a quarter-final match between Nigerian and the Soviet Union at the 1989 FIFA Under 20 World Championship in Saudi Arabia. The Soviet Union was leading 4-0 in the 60th minute when Nigeria began its fight back. A pair of freekick goals by Christopher Ohenhen (61st and 75th minutes) and goals by Samuel Elijah (83rd minute) and captain Nduka Ugbade (84th minute) made the scores 4-4 at full time. Dimeji Lawal missed a chance to give Nigeria victory before full time. It went to penalties and Samuel Elijah defeated the Prophets of Baal to score the winning freekick for Nigeria.
Oleg Salenko, who scored one of the goals for the Soviet Union, scored a record 5 goals for Russia in the 6-1 victory over Cameroon in the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
The NTA did not show the matches live because they were played in the middle of the afternoon (Nigerian time). The whole country was hooked on Radio Nigeria for commentaries of the matches. However, NTA showed the matches later at night at 10pm.
This is a clip of the NTA's coverage of the Miracle of Dammam and your commentator is Fabio Lanipekun and the co-commentator is Charles Ojugbana.
What an icon of sports, a voice never to be forgotten both on screen and over the airwaves. A consummate encyclopaedia of sports and a custodian of the very best memories of a time Nigeria was up there with the very best in world sports.
