|
Gani Fawehinmi: The Man, His Time, Actions and Reactions By Adebiyi Jelili Abudugana
Life and death are two incontrovertible and indissoluble realities which define the finiteness of man in time. One provides the entrance of man into time and the other; his exist into the spiritual. Neither exists independently and this is why these two phenomena are permanent parts of man’s lived situatedness in time. Since both connects man in time with the transcendental, then a man’s life in time becomes the basis of his worth in the spiritual space. In this sense, what a man was, his reactions and actions to the otherness of history, that is, those things that stands between man and the obligated divine basis of life, will determine the state and status of his being in the spiritual space. Within this conceptual skeleton do I wish intelligibilise Gani’s life, the Nigeria impasse and the essence of life.
Using the back-front approach, it is more significant to first decode the essence of life, that which is universal and ubiquitous to all religions. It is what provides the basis and drive for the attainment of the divine dictum a religion summons man to. Through the life of Adam, Moses, Jesus until Muhammad, the belief in the doctrinal anchorage of a particular religion is the first step that leads to the attainment of what it establishes as the basis of life. This belief varies in its nature and form from one religion to the other, but, those values prioritized as the bases and essences of life seem universal and a meeting ground for all religions. Justice, accountability, responsible leadership, morality, resisting oppressors, neighbourliness, but to mention a few are epitomized by all religions as values that must be upheld and protected before man can fulfill the essence of life. A critical look into the lives of the prophets of God illustrates this argument. There was none of them who did not contend against the otherness of history which subsisted in the form of tyranny-political, economy, and social, oppression, ungodliness, exploitation and social immorality. It was this which concretizes the spiritual dimensions of their prophetic messages in the social context of man’s needs in time relative to fulfilling obligated doctrinal responsibilities.
To establish the faith he summoned people to, Abraham fought against the exploitative and repressive pagan society of his, before he could bail his people out of such bondage. Moses was another example of that prophet who fought the despotic and tyrannical Pharaoh to fulfill his prophetic mandates and perhaps, lead man the way to fulfill the essence of life. Jesus was not left out as he was deeply distressed with the spectre of exploitation and oppression that was predominant in his time. He moved against the money lenders, those whose unscrupulous activities so constituted the bastion of the otherness of history annihilating man from fulfilling the essence of life as so dictated by God. Curbing such excesses was to Jesus a fundamental tenet of prophethood and hence his move to contain and root out the perpetrators of such evils. He took up those mischievous cabals, a struggle which was to latter orchestrate his politico-prophetic persecution. Prophet Muhammad’s legendary was more overwhelming as he fought the oppressively obsessed to establish a state founded on divine values which upheld the values of egalitarianism, justice and fairness to all, rule of equality and equal opportunity, freedom of expression and right to a meaningful and fulfilled living. It was this that motivated Michael H. Hart, in his book titled, “The 100: A Ranking of The Most Influential Persons in History,” to have rated him the most influential man in history. In summary, there was no prophet whose responsibility was without social justice, fighting the oppressor, upholding and propagating rule of equal opportunity, and it was on this that they premised their spiritual callings.
Gani, the attorney of the oppressed, lived in a society where the rule of law is the wish of the political and ruling elites; a society where the hopes, rights and aspiration of the people are scornly abandoned; where misgovernance, corruption, exploitation and suppression of people’s right are the established order. The vicissitudes of the times he lived outlived him and it was a pathetic situation where the oppressors find no resistance from religious leaders. His era was and is that where the usurpers of wealth of the land and those who deprived others of a deserved living were always welcomed to mosques and churches on a red carpet. It was such and is still a period, where rogues occupy the front seat in the ‘Kingdom of God,’ where our cathedrals, pastors and imams are either on the pay roll or on contract with those who mismanage the wealth of the land. He lived when it was a sin to talk in the face of tyranny, a period when everyone was interested in his individual problems and how the system can be exploited for self-seeking purposes. It was and still a time when the ‘Daddy’s’ converted the ‘Kingdom of Heaven,’ into ‘Kingdom of Commerce,’ which paraded looters on the front row and fraudulent CEO’s as testimonies to the power of faith. It was an epoch where imams gathered to recite the holy book a million times as intercession for a despotic ruler. It was a period where everything that matters was evil. Rather than join the bandwagon, Gani decided to identify with the prophetic essence of life as so demonstrated by their ways and disposition to life. It was this understanding and perhaps conviction that made him commit his inner will to challenging the dominant order with a view to opening the widows of that order which will make man more viable to fulfill the essence of life.
He began the prosecution of the course which was to latter consume his life until he died without compromising an inch of the principle with which he started the struggle in 1969. In his advocacy for just and transparent leadership, Fawehinmi committed his money, honour, reputation and life to ensure the triumph of truth over the forces of darkness. There was no silence in his dictionary in so much he observes corruption or an iota of an abuse of the rights of the masses to a descent and enabling livelihood. Single handedly, he fought Abacha to a standstill and he was the leading factor in the un-ceremonial of Babaginda from power. The latter has since his death proclaim that Gani often backs his views‘…with facts and laws,’ a pronouncement which is an admittance of guilt for all the heinous crimes Gani leveled against IBB. When lawyers were in a mad rush to defend electoral fraud in the court, Gani walked tall by closing the door of his chambers to such unholy patronage. When it matters to part ways with the Afenifere and withdraw his respect from the Yoruba Obas’ for betraying the course of establishing truth, Gani never gave it a second thought before he kept his distance. He courted controversy, romanced the odd and agonizing path of life and made and abandoned friends when they stand on the path of truth. That was typical of the prophets of God and a trait one would have expected our pastors and imams to emulate. Who is the true man of God or person of the faith, between a Gani Fawehinmi and those individuals who commercialize or compromise religion to make both ends meet? Gani gave a good account of himself as someone more deserving of the mercy of God, by carving for himself, family and the struggle he believed in, a means of sustenance that was morally justifiable, unlike that which derives from the proceed of stashed bank money or stolen state wealth. He never kept any congregation, not to talk of that of infidels, except on the barricade where he leads the army of resistance in order to fight the course of the downtrodden. He kept good control over his family and on all occasions, he fought and made friends all for the purpose of establishing the truth. He never had a permanent friend except truth itself and that manifested in his effort to expose Tinubu’s forgery scandal. Gani’s only friend was truth and nothing more. Unlike those hit and run comrades, who sought contracts from CHOGOM, Gani tenaciously stood his ground holding forth as the last man standing for what will serve the needs of the oppressed. He wined and dined with the poor, spent his resources on them and for them he died a life of the struggle which he vouch to continue in the grave, if any. Gani’s passion for a genuine activism remains unprecedented in our time because you need to be with him on the barricade and in the private to attest to this. It was everything in life to him. This was why he was always overtaken by tears of sorrow, when he recounts what people are made to unjustly suffer by the rogues who are piloting the affairs of Nigeria, both in the public and private sectors. Gani, the LION of Nigeria most unique advocacy, will be missed, mostly by the prisons and police headquarters where he spent his productive years and on all accounts, by all student leadership groups in Nigeria which he had offered free legal services at all times. Gani’s sympathy for students will never make him stand in for cultist related cases nor that which has to do with irresponsible activism. He never used the name of student to make money as it were with some barristers cum activists who exploited the likes of Tony Fash’s expulsion to make money from socialist international. Even when attempts were made to rake in money by commercializing his arrests, he was smart enough to distance himself from such moves. The Gani of the 80’s who went all out to canvass capital punishment against drug addicts and cocaine pursers was the Gani who supported Ribadu’s advocacy against political robbers. People accused him of judicial sterility, but they were not too blessed with super memory to have recounted how the fearless LION of Nigeria most unique advocacy supported the Buhari-Idiagbon National cleansing crusade. This bespeaks of Gani’s permanent interest in life- ridding the nation off rogues, drug pursers, political looters, financial and executive robbers and reckless police which do not have modicum of human instinct. He also advocated for good medical delivery and education, a struggle which occupied the centre spread of his heart. When I read of his child’s backbone problem, I was expecting him to personalize his demands. Gani did disappointed me when he made use of it to press home popular demands for all and sundry. Did he disappoint anybody neither when he requested that no governmental fund should be part of his burial rites? However, I am slightly disappointed when he requested that the rich and the poor should be allowed access to his burial without benchmarking those opulent ones who fall into this brace. I would have wished he completed the full circle of his ways by following the path of those great minds who instructed that no infidel should observe Islamic burial rites and prayer on their dead corpse. No man is perfect!
Gani was truly a man who is more deserving of emulation than our religious leaders because his actions and reactions were a true reflection of the essence of life exemplified by the prophets of God. Adieu Ganiyu Fawehinmi…
The author, Adebiyi Jelili Abudugana, was a former student union leader in UNILAG. He can be reached through: abudugana2000@yahoo.com |