Prominent Nigerian lawyer and rights activist Gani Fawehinmi died Saturday after a prolonged battle with cancer, his colleages said. He was 71.
Fawehinmi, holder of Nigeria’s highest legal title, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), was an author, publisher, philanthropist, social critic, human and civil rights lawyer and politician. He had been in and out of hospital both at home and abroad for the treatment of cancer in the past few years.

Amos Tutuola was born in Abeokuta, a large town in Western Nigeria. His father, Charles Tutuola, was was a farmer. Tutuola heard his first folk stories at his Yoruba-speaking mother’s knee. When he was about 7 years old, one of his father’s cousins took him to live with F.O. Monu, an Ibe man, as a servant. Instead of paying Tutuola money, he sent the young boy to the Salvation Army primary school. He attended Lagos High School for a year, and worked as a live-in houseboy for a government clerk in order to ensure his tuition at the school. When his father died in December 1938, Tutuola had to end his studies. He tried his luck as a farmer, but his crop failed and he moved to Lagos in 1940. During World War II he worked for the Royal Air Forces as a blacksmith, and tried a number of other vocations, including selling bread, and messengering for the Nigerian Department of Labor. In 1946 Tutuola completed his first full-length book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, within a few days – “I was a story-teller when I was in the school,” he later said. Next year he married Victoria Alake.

Babatunde Olatunji is “Master of Drums,” a virtuoso of West African percussion. Born and raised in Nigeria, Olatunji was educated at Morehouse College in Atlanta and the New York University Graduate School. At Morehouse, he began performing informally, entertaining fellow students. As the demand for his music increased, he entered the professional music field.

Kenule “Ken” Beeson Saro-Wiwa (October 10, 1941 – November 10, 1995) was a Nigerian author, television producer, and environmentalist. He was the son of Chief Jim Wiwa. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority whose homelands in the Niger Delta have been targeted for oil extraction since the 1950s.

Fela Anikulapo Kuti (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, October 15, 1938 – August 2, 1997), or simply Fela, was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.