I could not believe that Gani Fawehinmi was dead when I got wind of the news last Saturday. Although he had been ill for some time now, it’s unbelievable he’s gone.
Fawehinmi, popularly known as Gani, has passed on. Some sources said he had succumbed to a long drawn battle waged against him by cancer, which had lasted for about 2 years. The news of his sad demise had flooded in during the early hours of the morning.
Before now, Fawehinmi was one of the most famous figures in Nigeria. Fondly referred to as "the people's lawyer" and "Senior Advocate of the Masses," he used his legal training and resources in fighting for justice for the Nigerian people.
Like Wole Soyinka, Fawehinmi was the loud conscience of millions of Nigerians. For him, silence was never an option. In fact, I will greatly miss his husky but firm voice on TV. I love Fawehinmi because he believed there were no tyrants too big to be challenged.
For most of the years he lived, he endured imprisonment, harassment and the climate of assassination created by the different military regimes. He battled causes, he took on the corruption of civilian governments while highlighting their illegitimate means of coming to power.
He was not everything to everybody, there were people who liked or hated him. He was liked and hated because of the endless energy with which he tenaciously pursued what he believed in. He protected the fundamental human rights of the ordinary Nigerian, and had respect for the hopes and aspirations of the masses who were victims of bad governance.
I could recall how much he fought the government of Ibrahim Babangida after the death of Dele Giwa, who died through a parcel bomb in 1986. Fawehinmi openly accused Babangida of being complicit in the journalist's murder. He later took the case to the Supreme Court, but lost. For this, Babangida tried to humiliate him publicly when he was arrested.
The story was the same when Sanni Abacha came to power in the early 1990s. Fawehinmi led the fight against the cancellation of 12 June 1993 presidential election and the subsequent detention of Moshood Abiola. His international passport was seized on many occasions; his residence and chambers were ransacked several times.
He was beaten up repeatedly and was confined to one part of the country in order to prevent him from being listened to by the masses. Some of Fawehinmi’s books which Abacha did not like were confiscated and one of his Lagos houses, where his law books were kept, was about to be set ablaze when the perpetrators were caught and apprehended by neighbours.
In spite of it all, he was undaunted. Even till he died, he continued to take on the ruling class, and filed a law suit against the current civilian administration.
For some of us, Fawehinmi was more than an activist. He was also a humanitarian with an uncommon legal mind. I could remember that he gave scholarships to many poor students in the county and revolutionised law reportage with the establishment of the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports in the late 1980s. What else can I say, but adieu to a man who fought for the masses.
