He was agitated - as you would expect anytime he was discussing Nigeria. "If the military takes over again, don't expect me to go on the street to protest," Chief Gani Fawehinmi said, shaking his head. "I am disgusted with the conduct of our politicians. They are behaving in a way that will give the military an excuse to come back. Is this the democracy we fought for? Just look at the way these politicians are behaving! Me, I won't take to the streets again o!" That was sometime in 2002 at his chambers at Anthony Village, Lagos. I had gone with my friend, Mallam Uba Sani, to see the constitutional lawyer, the man who spent his life fighting for the rule of law and the downtrodden people of Nigeria. It was my first time of having one-on-one with Fawehinmi, who was so warm you would think he had known me for ages.
He complained bitterly about the certificate scandals, the looting of the treasury and the gale of impeachment of deputy governors. Of course, I did not take his threat seriously because, knowing Gani, how on earth could he close his eyes to happenings in the polity? No, he just couldn't. In fact, the next time I interviewed him - that was on May 27, 2003 - he had transformed from an activist to an activist-politician. He had formed a party, National Conscience Party (NCP), and sought to become President of Nigeria. The philosopher wanted to be king. But he got the shocker of his life in the April 19 elections (which we called "419" polls). The polls conducted by the Abel Guorbadia-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) set a new record in election manipulation, before the almighty Prof. Maurice Iwu, who succeeded Guorbadia, began to break the records in quick succession, like the Jamaican sprint sensation Usain Bolt.
Of course, Gani was never going to win the election in the first place. In Nigeria, you don't win an election because of the power of your dreams or the tenacity of purpose or the sagacity of your ideas. You win elections because the status quo, the establishment, has decreed it and made state institutions available to you to smoothen your path to power. You win elections because INEC, police, SSS and the military, as well as the finest thugs and cultists in town, are at your service. That is the bedrock of Nigeria's democracy, if you know what I mean. Many Nigerians thought 1999 was the worst, until they experienced Guorbadia in 2003. Gani despaired. His disenchantment was not about INEC, though, and that was the sad part.
I asked: "What is your biggest disappointment in life?"
He took a while to answer as he gazed into the floor.
"I have seen many disappointments in life," he said slowly, "but the worst is the last election (April 19, 2003). After INEC had done all the nonsense, I expected Nigerians to protest. I expected Nigerians to rise up and say no, this is unacceptable. This is the same Nigerians I have fought for all my life. I could not believe it. They just went about their business as if nothing had happened. It's like somebody splashed faeces on them and instead of protesting, they chose to rub the faeces on their faces like pomade. It was too shocking and disappointing."
The interview offered me a lot of insight into his life. I asked a lot of personal questions, some uncomfortable and unfair, but he answered them. For instance, I took him on over his religion, Islam. His father, Chief Saheed Tugbobo Fawehinmi, the late Seriki Musulumi of Ondo, was a Muslim leader who reputedly brought Islam to Ondo. Gani's mother, Alhaja Muniratu Fawehinmi, was also a devoted Muslim. She was the Iya Olori Egbe Adini of Ondo Central Mosque.
"Are you a devout Muslim?" I asked him.
He shifted slightly on his seat.
"I try my best," he replied with a straight face.
"Do you pray five times a day?" I probed further.
"Not always," he answered, sincerely.
"Do you fast during Ramadan?"
"I try my best..."
"Have you performed the hajj?"
"Not yet, but I sponsor people to hajj every year..."
I felt I was pushing him too far because, to start with, I am a Christian and religion, at the end of the day, is a personal matter. But I enjoyed the grilling all the same.
I asked him to tell me the most memorable events of his life, and he listed quite a few, starting with his experience with a snake when he was at Ansar-Ud-Deen Primary School, Iyemaja, Ondo. He was in the school compound sitting on the grass. A cobra, standing like a question mark right at his back, was waiting to pounce on him, with Gani completely unaware of the peril until a passer-by screamed. Another experience, he told me, happened on October 1, 1960 at Race Course (Tafawa Balewa Square), Lagos. You guessed right: it was Nigeria's Independence ceremony. "I was there. I watched in excitement as our new leaders made their speeches. It was the dawn of a new era for Nigeria." He was then on his first job as a clerk in the High Court, Lagos.
Yet another memorable moment: his trip to the UK in 1961 to study law at the Hilborn College of Law, University of London. He travelled by sea on the M.V. Aureol passenger ship. "On board, I noticed that there was a man who regularly came out to sun-bathe on the top cabin at a particular time of the day. I used to be held in awe. Later, I was told it was Chief Odimegwu Ojukwu, Nigeria's first millionaire," he said, still held in awe.
More memorable experiences awaited him - perhaps the most difficult of his life. His father was a rich man who had many wives and many children. He lacked nothing until his father died while he was in Part II. It was the turning point of his life, he told me. "Everybody abandoned me," he said. "All my father's friends who benefited from him and were always around him simply disappeared. I almost dropped out of school. Life was so hard for me in London." He dropped out of school as a full-time student and took a full-time job as a toilet cleaner at Russell Square Hotel, Southampton Row, London. He also worked as a sweeper at the Gatwick Airport.
He practically taught himself Law for the last two years of the LLB degree. He passed all his examinations but came out with Third Class. Circumstances were too cruel, but he would go on to live a first-class life as a constitutional lawyer and a social crusader who was detained too many times and had been to all the notorious prisons in Nigeria for his views. The Nigerian state sought to kill his spirit - students gave him Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM) to spite the Federal Government which consistently denied him the honour of being a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). President Olusegun Obasanjo eventually awarded him SAN in 2001.
Gani had his faults, sure. If not he would be God. He was always full of drama, sometimes in excess. There were times I disagreed with him openly, notably when he tried to justify the perfidy perpetuated by Nuhu Ribadu in Plateau State where the EFCC organised six lawmakers (out of 21 members) to illegally impeach the governor, Chief Joshua Dariye. But Gani was a slave to his conscience - he hated corruption with all his soul and he would justify any move to fight the monster. That was why he rejected the national honour of Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) offered to him last year by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua - he believed Yar'Adua had compromised the anti-graft war by humiliating Ribadu out of office.
Fawehinmi was, like Fela, one Nigerian who had no ethnic group. He was loved across the divides. Ethnic chauvinism and religious bigotry were far removed from him. He was never linked to any scandal. He never took money from any donor or government. Fittingly, Babangida - who arrested, tortured and jailed Gani countless times as military ruler - singled him out for praise five years after leaving office, describing him as the only genuine activist he knew.
Gani finally succumbed to cancer of the lungs yesterday at the age of 71. But, honestly, people like Gani never die. They only take on immortality, eternally free from the pains and the perfidy of this life. Farewell, Chief. We love you.
Take Note of the Writing Pad
Forgive me, but I don't believe it when a government official starts hitting his head against the wall in an attempt to convince us that he is fighting for the interest of Nigerians or defending the rule of law. Certainly not when the drama is perpetrated by a federal lawmaker, of all political species. So I was a bit bemused when the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Banking, Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi, started yelling at the CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, during the week for "overstepping" his authority and "making a mockery" of our dearly beloved and revered constitution.
Ozomgbachi, who said he was riled by the N420 billion bailout (or loan, whatever) injected into the five liquidity-challenged banks by the CBN, screamed for effect: "Any action taken in pursuant to the CBN Act that is inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution is null and void, ineffective and of no effect whatsoever." Doesn't that sound like a court pronouncement, by the way? The last time I checked, if there is a conflict between an Act of Parliament and the constitution, it is a court of law, not a lawmaker, who declares the Act "null, void, ineffective and of no effect". Ozomgbachi seems to be playing a dual role here - as a lawmaker and an interpreter of the law.
The judge-lawmaker wrote his "judgment" on a piece of paper "in a hurry" - despite all the time at his committee's disposal to prepare for Sanusi's appearance. And there was a little problem: the "judgement" was on the letterhead of Rockson Engineering, one of the biggest debtors to Intercontinental Bank Plc whose name was published by the CBN in a newspaper advert. Rockson was rocked by the name-and-shame advert and angrily took on the central bank for publishing its debts. All insinuations thus went to the effect that Ozomgbachi's "judgement" was written by an outsider and he merely played out the script in his "patriotic" opposition to the action of the CBN. All those affected by the CBN action, it appears, have now formed a coalition and are fighting the apex bank from every angle. So whether your grouse is the legality of the "bailout" or the propriety of publishing names of debtors or the legitimacy of removing bank CEOs, just join the queue and take a swipe at the CBN. The coalition's goal is the same: crush Sanusi.
In fairness to Ozomgbachi, the use of Rockson letterhead (on A4 paper, not block pad or jotter, as you may have been forced to believe) might have been an honest mistake. He was maybe in a hurry or he was so angry he didn't look at the logo or he just couldn't be bothered by the colour of the paper sucking his ink. All these are plausible explanations. What I find objectionable is that instead of coming out to apologise and regret the oversight - as civilised people do in civilised societies - he went on the offensive again, hurling all sorts of threats in our direction. That is Nigeria. Scream, shout, blow the roof and walk away. It is the person who shouts the most that wins the argument.
If Ozomgbachi indeed sympathises with the banks, it is his right. He doesn't need to pass it as a patriotic duty or the opinion of the entire House. He is just a committee chairman who still needs to present his report to the House. His sympathy for the banks is understandable. After all, the bankers have been very close to his committee since the onset of the era of frequent invitations to appear before them. Nothing ever came out of those appearances in any case. Just as nothing came out of the House of Representatives power probe, of which Rockson Engineering was one of the companies whose projects were investigated. By the way, Ozomgbachi was a member of that power probe committee. Ha, do the math yourself...
- Blogger Comment
- Facebook Comment
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
0 comments:
Post a Comment