JUST like he was an uncommon phenomenon while he lived, even in death, the legal icon and human rights activist, Chief Ganiyu Fawehinmi (SAN), remains a colossus as his colleagues at the Bar and Bench yesterday showered encomiums on him.
The tributes were paid at a valedictory court session organised in Fawehinmi's honour and presided over by the new Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Inumidun Enitan Akande, on the court premises in Igbosere, Lagos.
The list of dignitaries present at the event was unprecedented just as all the national officials of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) were present, a feat, which the national president said was first in the history of the association.
The list included the retired Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Muhammadu Uwais, Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa (SAN), Lagos Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Olasupo Shasore (SAN), the NBA President, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), former Osun State Attorney- General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeboyega Awomolo (SAN), Mr. J. B Dawodu and Chief Ayo Adesanya.
Others include former NBA's President, Mrs. Priscilia Kuye (SAN), President, West African Bar Association, Mr. Femi Falana, members of body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria represented by Chief Frank Akinrele (SAN) and chairmen of Lagos, Ikeja and Ikorodu branches of the NBA.
Justice Akande in what could pass as her first official assignment set the tone of encomiums by saying that it was not a time to mourn but to celebrate Fawehinmi.
According to her, Fawehinmi was a legal giant, a man of great passion to defend the oppressed and was consistently on the part of justice, equity for ordinary Nigerians.
Justice Akande said Fawehinmi was outstanding in his lifetime and imparted greatly on the society, leaving behind giant footprints in the sand of times.
His contribution, she said, would continue to remain a reference point to the legal profession for a long time to come as he has left a worthy legacy for all to emulate.
"Fawehinmi may not have achieved all his life ambitions, but he died a fulfilled man. He died when a new chapter was to be opened in the Lagos judiciary, which will focus on transparency and quick dispensation of justice", which she said formed the bedrock of Fawehinmi's noble course.
In his tribute, Aondoakaa said if not for its unpleasant consequence, he would have urged the CJ to issue an injunction restraining Fawehinmi's body from being committed to mother earth.
Describing the late lawyer as a noble man, statesman, consummate advocate, a pride of the legal profession and a hope to the hopeless, he said President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua had specifically asked him to convey his heart-felt condolences to Fawehinmi's family and Nigerians.
According to him, the late Fawehinmi handled over 5,000 pro bono cases traversing all segments of the nation even at the danger to his own life.
The AGF described Fawehinmi's contributions as unquantifiable, combining all in the practising, writing and publishing as well as championing the expansion of political landscape through the formation of political parties.
Also, Shasore said Fawehinmi's role in creating new judicial authority was legendary as he fought the fight others were either afraid to fight or were tired of fighting.
According to him, Fawehinmi was an uncommon man obsessed with the plight of the common man, who broke the mode of case law by taking public litigation to the highest level.
He said: "The presence of all of us here is a testimony that the legal icon has actively defied death, because he lives forever in the whole of the nation."
For Justice Uwais, "there is no doubt that Gani was a brilliant lawyer and a man of principle, a dogged fighter for the right of the down-trodden.
Uwais said that sometimes one would think that Fawehinmi was fighting, and other times, one will be in full support of what he stood for. It again depends on the nature of what he was fighting.
"It is actually impossible to say how many times he had appeared before me", he added.
Also in his tribute entitled "Gani Fawehinmi: A dogged fighter departs in a blaze of glory", Akeredolu said the NBA received the news of the transmutation of Fawehinmi from his finitely temporal existence to immortality with a mixed feeling.
According to him, the sense of loss is profoundly devastating as the mere thought that our adorable Fawehinmi will be referred to in past tense is difficult to bear.
More unsettling, he said, was the fact that the tribe of genuine activists and consistent advocates of the rights of the common man was dwindling in quality and quantity.
He said: "That the gadfly chose this period when despondency hangs thickly in the Nigerian firmament to bid us farewell makes the impact of the departure debilitating. We are, however, mollified that this legal giant left indelible imprints on the national, nay international landscape, that generations yet unborn will find imperishable.
"In the last four decades, the name Gani has become synonymous with consistent and persistent agitation against bad governance and crass opportunism. So relentless was this advocate of the oppressed that he became a near-permanent guest at various detention centres in the country. Undeterred by constant harassment and vilification even from colleagues and self-professed activists, this humanist pursued his vision with uncommon vigour. So numerous were his afflictions, the people's advocate conquered them all.
"The evocation of eulogies since the transition to immortality of this great son Africa appears unending.
"Amidst the torrents of encomiums from both Nigerians and members of the international community on the contributions of this icon in the field of law and, more importantly, on his relentless crusade for the emancipation of the downtrodden, the totality of all this is yet to approximate the essential Gani. Our generation is indeed fortunate to have been living witnesses to the phenomenon."
He continued: "This selfless advocate of the masses, public litigator par excellence, philanthropist, who acted as if condemned to do good, the scourge of deluded potentates and megalomaniac pimps, pious yet unobtrusive with hypocritical display of holiness, erected monuments in good deeds which promise to lock time in a fierce battle in the centuries ahead."
"Gani bestrode the socio-political landscape like a colossus holding aloft the banner of rectitude and less principled citizens and other puny elements, pretenders and commissioned agents, walk under as underlings.
"From the late sixties, when he forced himself into our consciousness as the defender of the oppressed, through the historic inquiry of the cause of the death of the student martyr, Kunle Adepeju, felled by the bullets of the police in 1971, to the present days, he remained the issue. No discourse on any national problem was foreclosed until the voice of the voiceless was heard. So infectious was the Gani magic that all debates were neatly divided into those in support of his views as against those against.
"You could disagree with him and even express a certain predilection towards odium in respect of his personality, you ignored him at your peril. He excited too many controversies as he was not mediocre. Even those who disagreed with him readily admitted that he was incorruptible.
"He was a man of many parts. He did not subscribe to the unprofitable principle of rabble-rousing. Yet, this enigma was never found pussy-footing anytime the clarion call came for mass action. He was extremely comfortable; he nevertheless shunned the assembly of 'ten-percenters' and other unscrupulous adventurers in power for the sake of subjugating the people and keeping them in perpetual servitude. His law office was immersed in pro bono cases to the extent that aroused curiosity as to how he was able to break even as a practitioner."
from the Nigerian Guardian
