Highlife Maestro Fatai Rolling Dollar is dead.

Few hours ago news broke that the famous highlife musician Fatai Olayiwola Olagunju, popularly known as Fatai Rolling Dollar died, yesterday morning in Lagos. Confirming his demise, his wife told news men in a telephone chat. Rolling Dollar was reportedly on a musical tour of the United States when he took ill and had to return home.

He was admitted initially at Ahmadiya Hospital in Abule-Egba area of Lagos before being transferred to Marritol Hospital about two weeks ago. He will be buried today.

The bereaved said the musician was receiving treatment in America as he fell ill in that country. She said that few days after arrival in Nigeria, he complained of inability to walk properly. He was subsequently taken to a private hospital at Ogunlana Drive in Surulere area of Lagos State.

The late musician’s wife said her husband was on admittance in the hospital for over a week, before he finally passed away early Wednesday morning.

“Yes it is true, Baba is dead. He died this morning at a private hospital located in Ogunlana drive of Surulere in Lagos,” Fatai’s widow told PREMIUM TIMES correspondent on the phone.

Reacting to Rolling Dollar’s death, Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State in a statement by the Director of Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, described the octogenarian high-life maestro as a “testimony in perseverance and hope.”

The governor said Rolling Dollar’s life sojourn demonstrated that no time is too late for man to have a breakthrough in life.

He stated that the old artiste, who trained Ebenezer Obey in his heydays, shone at his old age when nobody ever thought of musical success for him again after his initial popularity at the beginning of his career.

As at the time of his death Fatai Rolling Dollar was 85 years old.