Dr. Frederick Fasehun.

Apart from being the founder of OPC, most Nigerians know little or nothing about Dr. Frederick Fasehun.

Most Nigerians do not know Frederick Fasehun the Business Man; Frederick Fasehun, the Acupuncturist; or Frederick Fasehun, the highly sought-after consultant anaesthesiologist. Fewer people know that Dr. Frederick Fasehun was the founding father of the now-rested department of acupuncture at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).

FREDERICK ISIOTAN FASEHUN IS A MAN WHO HAD A DATE WITH DESTINY AND BRACED ALL ODDS TO ACHIEVE GREATNESS.

As a sickly infant, his mother got fed up and threw him into a river but he was rescued by his step mother. Thereafter, he was banished to go and live with his maternal grandmother.

Going to school was not part of the agenda for this weary child whose father had 14 wives. But he faked sickness and went on hunger strike to negotiate his going to school which he began at age 13.

The first two women he fell in love with, as an adult, died tragically so he kept his distance from women for a long time.

Weekend SuccessDigest brings to you the amazing story of Dr. Frederick Isiotan Fasehun. Read on…

WSD: As a child, you faked illness and went on hunger strike to attend school. How did you do it?

Fasehun: I would refuse supper and when they asked me why, I would say, unless I was allowed to go to school, I would not eat. Of course, I was emaciating and no mother would condone that. But I insisted on ‘no school no food’.

WSD: How did you feel when your school principal told you at the age of 20 that you were supposed to be leaving secondary school instead of trying to get into it?

Fasehun: I felt insulted! But, it was not a biological insult. I took it that he had told me the truth, and that energized me. A few minutes after that insult, I got to the class where I had been placed and my classmates were jeering at me. I felt awful. The next period was free so they had a longer time to jeer at me.

When we got to the library, they continued making fun of my beard. I felt like packing my books into my bag and going back home but, I summoned some courage to address the class and I said to them, ‘There are many of you but none of you would beat me in any subject until we leave this school’. This provoked bigger jeering and laughter. It was not a well meant challenge because I had never studied Algebra before then, or Latin, or Geometry or Statistics and the principal had told me that the next exam was in a few weeks. So, I had to rush. I had time only to eat. We went for the exams – second term exams – and they were humiliated right to the end.

On December 19th 1958 when we were passing out, the principal had gathered us in that same library to address us. Before he came in, I stood up to remind my mates of my promise three years ago. I said If there was anyone that has beaten me in any subject, let the person put up his hand. Instead of jeering at me now, they all started clapping. God is a wonderful God.

WSD: Insults and humiliations seem to spur you on instead of discouraging you. From whom did you inherit that character?

Fasehun: I do not know if it was an inheritance but I know it is the work of God who keeps moving me from honour to honour and from glory to glory and from one excellent position to another.

I was a member of the cathedral choir and we sang many inspiring songs and psalms. I listened to men of God preach. I was a church goer and that was why I wasn’t going to give up my faith when the Roman Catholic school wanted me to change my denomination.

I came first in the exam at that Catholic teacher training school. The principal, Mr. Nelly, started announcing the result from class two – my class. He said “I am happy to inform you that Frederick Fasehun is leading in virtually all subjects but….” Then he said “But”, the entire hall became silent and he said, “He is expelled”.

When I went to enquire why, he said I was not supposed to be in that school since I was not Roman Catholic. I did not own the school so I left but my mother insisted I would be educated.

WSD: You got a Commonwealth Scholarship when you were in financial mess as a medical student in Aberdeen, Scotland, what would you have done if you hadn’t gotten that scholarship?

Fasehun: If I did not get it, I would continue as a labourer and save money for my education. You know that education in Britain is liberal, you can be working and schooling but it is not so with medicine which is full time.

But, I had worked out a method which was when I returned from school, I would go to the factory to work through the night. I had perfected that plan but fortunately, that scholarship came.

I was waiting for the result of that scholarship that I had applied for, and six months later, the letter came and the arrears came. I was on top of the world. I stashed money in all my pockets and my landlady thought I had robbed somebody. It was the work of God. I was at the point of collapse when that scholarship came.

WSD: Tell us about Frederick Fasehun the Acupuncturist?

Fasehun: When I came back from my post graduate work, I returned to my job at LUTH, in the department of Anesthesiology. Anesthesia is what provides painlessness for operations to be carried out.

So, having gained a specialist position in anesthesiology, the United Nations wanted to sponsor african doctors to China to study acupuncture and they thought somebody who had undergone post graduate studies in painlessness should be given the opportunity to go and read acupuncture; a form of Chinese traditional medicine which treats pain mainly.

They chose me. I did not feel like going because I had just returned from post graduate work two years earlier. However, my professor, WB Fowler, a great friend of mine said, “Fred, you were given scholarship for four years to go to the Liverpool post graduate medical school, you spent only 18 months and you came back with the fellowship. We are not going to give this scholarship to another person but you.”

So, I took the scholarship. I thought it was a challenge too. China was not a popular country with Nigerians. But, I had been to many other countries and it would be another feather in my cap if I went to China. I enjoyed my stay in China but I did not think I should sit down seriously to read acupuncture because I believed having gone through western medicine and training in undergraduate and postgraduate, why should I be talking about traditional medicine?

So I did not particularly pay attention to the lectures. But there was a particular afternoon; a woman had a dislocated shoulder in the factory where she was working and they brought her to the clinic and the lecturer who realized I was not particularly paying attention to acupuncture called on me to treat the woman. I asked ‘How?’ And he said “Put that shoulder back in place.”

I could not imagine it! In western medicine, you would need to put this woman to sleep, give her painkillers before you touched the arm. My lecturer continued “So you don’t believe that acupuncture would do it”? I said ‘No, the woman would go into shock and she might die’.

He said “Ok, but if you were to do it using acupuncture, what points would you use?” I rattled out the points and he said “Yes you know it. Take these needles and put them in those points you have just mentioned.” I said ‘Sir, if this woman collapses and dies in shock, it is your responsibility’, he said “Yes.”

So I took the needles from him and put them at those points. Then he said I should put the woman’s shoulder back in place. With trepidation and trembling, I held the woman’s arm and adopted western method, the arm went into place.

The woman held the arm, took a deep breath and said ‘She she ni’ which in English means ‘Thank you very much’. I looked at her with disbelieve. That was the point I started respecting acupuncture.

I started burning midnight candles to study acupuncture. What I had neglected, I started to learn. As usual, God stood by me and at the end of six months; the lecturers were surprised at my results because they thought I would never be able to meet up.

They had written me off as somebody who would fail. If it was in Nigeria, they would think I had stolen the questions but God stood by me and I passed the exams in flying colours.

I returned to Nigeria and decided to practice acupuncture. I was made a consultant anesthesiologist and acupuncturist.

A day came that a consultant neurosurgeon, Dr. Ojikutu, was going to operate on the brain of an Igbo man called Mr. Okafor and I was to anesthetize for him. I said I would adopt acupuncture, Dr Ojikutu refused. I told him that I would not do the operation with him. I insisted I was going to use acupuncture for which Nigeria sent me to study and that he was not going to kill what I had studied.

Eventually, Dr Ojikutu agreed, but warned me that if he opens the patient’s skull and the patient starts shouting, that he would drop the knife and leave the patient for me. I agreed.

So, we started and I stood by the patient, Mr. Okafor. Dr. Ojikutu made his incision and took his hammer to cut into the bone, entered the brain and was working on it, fiddling about. I asked Mr. Okafor how he was doing and he said he was alright.

At a point, Mr. Okafor demanded for a drink and we gave him a bottle of an orange drink and straw to suck while the surgeon was working on his brain.

This was what convinced Dr. Ojikutu. For other operations Dr. Ojikutu presided over, if I wasn’t available, he would tell all the parties involved “Find me Dr. Fasehun or postpone the surgery.”

I eventually started a department of acupuncture in LUTH and new doctors were coming in to study acupuncture, but, when I left the teaching hospital, that department collapsed.

WSD: Describe Frederick Fasehun the businessman – a hotel owner at least.

Fasehun: I came to own Century hotel by accident. I wanted this place as a hospital but as at that time, the doctors were flexing muscles with Tunde Idiagbon and Buhari. Idiagbon had promised to turn every private practice into government property and I had built this structure (Century hotel) to foundation level.

So, I quickly turned the structure into a hotel following the pattern and architecture of a hotel I stayed in Hong Kong when I visited China.

Shortly after we got to the decking level, Idiagbon and Buhari were overthrown but I couldn’t go back to the original hospital plan, and that is how I came to own a hotel.

But as a doctor, I knew I needed a hospital. So, I started accumulating money, bought a piece of land and built a hospital in Mushin – Best Hope Hospital.

WSD: What are the other business interests of Frederick Fasehun?

Fasehun: I am not really made to be a businessman. First, I am too sympathetic to be a businessman. To be a businessman in Nigeria, you need to be Shylock, and I am not one. I place all other virtues before money – integrity, sympathy, empathy, and the love of human.

That is partly why I have not been a good politician. I don’t know how to deceive people or take money from people when I should be the one serving them. I was the first National Chairman of Labour Party under Babangida and I aspired to be a president under SDP, but the exercise was a cash and carry one and I withdrew.

I believe that man should aspire first to have integrity and then money will come. Don’t run after money!

WSD: What are some of the principles you hold dear that has helped in shaping your life that people can learn from?

Fasehun: Nothing discourages me, I believe in ‘live and let’s live’ and I also believe in the crusade for social justice.

For example, one of the people responsible for my incarceration for almost two years is Al Mustapha, but I do not think Nigeria was fair to him so I started championing his cause and crusading for social justice to be dispensed to him

WSD: Considering your activities in OPC, are you a tribalist?

Fasehun: No. I do not see myself as a tribalist because I have never actually practiced tribalism. I had always fought a cause for the common people. That is why after founding OPC; I founded the Coalition of Ethnic Nationalities of Nigeria.

The last time we (Coalition of Ethnic Nationalities of Nigeria ) had a meeting here which was three months ago, 52 ethnic nationality groups attended. I am the chairman and an Igbo man, Bright Ezeocha, is the Secretary General. My Deputy Chairman is Yerima Shetima from Kano, the treasurer is from the South South and the legal adviser is from the north central.

Because of the distribution of offices amongst the ethnic groups, people started developing confidence in the coalition and that is why it is becoming broader and broader.

WSD: What books or event greatly imparted your life to make it the success it is today?

Fasehun: I had read several books but the biography of Nelson Mandela – the greatest statesman alive today – impacted on my thinking and my life. Mandela suffered so much for his people, was incarcerated for 29 years and those who were responsible for that came to bow before him later when he became President. That greatly impacted on me.

That of Mahatma Gandhi – a philosopher par excellence also impacted on my life. I read of his eternal sentences that man should learn to forgive and to emphasize that, he said an eye for an eye would leave the world blind and he went through a lot of sufferings during colonial India.

Of course, the lives of legendry icons like Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello also imparted me.

WSD: You are a very busy man and in the course of this interview, you have displayed amazing memory and strength for a man of 77 years who looks as if he is in his sixties. What has your lifestyle got to do with this?

Fasehun: I grew up with an old woman who was ‘Spartan’. Under her I learnt the value of discipline and of fresh food. I do not smoke or drink in excess. I live a life of moderation in things I do and I eat once a day – at night – the meal serves as my sleeping tablet and I make sure I sleep soundly. But I take plenty of fluid during the day. WSD