|
Grand
Entry of a Gadfly
For more than
three decades he has been contented with his role as one of the
nation’s most popular social critic and human rights crusader. Now
popular Lagos lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief
Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi, 64 is gunning for the country’s number
one seat under the ticket of the radical leaning National Conscience
Party (NCP),
writes TONY
IYARE
He did not disappoint
the yearnings of his teeming admirers. Neither did his acidic laden
words fail him. When radical lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, 64 mounted
the rostrum in Lagos recently to declare his intention to contest
the presidential election of the country in 2003, he offered himself
as an alternative to what he perceives as the many years of misrule
in Nigeria, one of Africa’s largest nations. As usual he was caustic
and unsparing of the level of political and economic miasma in a
country blessed with huge earnings from oil and other rich mineral
resources but with little to show for it in terms of concrete development.
His entry penultimate Tuesday gave fillip to other prominent activists
like Mr Olisa Agbakoba, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr Abdul
Oroh, Mr Femi Falana and Chief Mike Ezekhome who have earlier shown
interests in the Senate, House of Representatives, Ekiti and Edo
governorship race respectively. It does indicate that members of
the pro-democracy constituency are no longer willing to pull chess
nuts from the fire for other people to savour. “We have done too
much of these”, one of their ilk noted last week. Their participation
will be an opportunity for the people to gauge the claim of these
acclaimed critics to provide better leadership and engender pro-people
programmes.
This is a daunting
task. Many political observers see the lukewarm response to politics
by the pro-democracy group, whose protests and agitation exacerbated
the demise of the evil regime of General Sani Abacha as responsible
for the general poor performance of the political elite in delivering
democracy dividend to the people. With the exception of Senator
Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Alhaji Lam Adesina, both governors of Lagos
and Oyo states, Senators Wahab Dosunmu and Tokunbo Afikuyomi who
were key figures in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO),
many of those who spearheaded the campaign against the self-succession
scheme of General Sani Abacha particularly from the civil rights
groups were left out of the post-Abacha civilian government.
Before this
the heightened agitation by the Campaign for Democracy, an almagam
of several pro-democracy groups had precipitated the abdication
of power by Babangida in July, 1993. Announcing his entry into the
murky waters of Nigeria’s politics, Gani renowned as the stormy
petrel of the bar admonished the media that with his indication
to contest the number one seat with incumbent, President Olusegun
Obasanjo, the tag social critic should give way for now. “From now
onwards, I should be referred to as a presidential aspirant”, he
said. Like Ghana’s Akoto Ampaw, whose name is linked to the defence
of students, workers, the media and the intelligentsia in the West
African country, Gani is always in the fore-front of the defence
of the rights of the citizenry and the promotion of pro-democracy
struggles in the country. His debut into human rights struggle was
in 1968 when he emerged the star counsel in the controversial Obande
Obeya case. In spite of arrests, intimidation and detention, he
was not deterred but doggedly pursued the case of the lowly placed
civil servant whose wife was seduced by a top official of the defunct
Benue-Plateau state government and was victorious.
Since then,
Gani has been fired more and more by the zeal to champion cases
dealing with infraction of the rights of students, workers, journalists,
the intelligentsia and the masses. In the heat of the campaign against
the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), a major plank of the
economic policies of the government of General Ibrahim Babaginda,
Gani with the support of prominent labour leader, Chief Michael
Imoudu and Comrade Wahab Goodluck initiated the Alternative to SAP
conference in1989. Apprehensive that the outcome of the talks may
rubbish its commitment to the World Bank /IMF inspired SAP programme,
the regime deployed anti-riot policemen armed with tear gas canisters,
guns, tanks and surveillance helicopters to lay siege to the then
Nigeria Labour Congress headquarters venue of the conference in
Lagos. Gani was eventually arrested along with Imoudu and Goodluck.
Though Imoudu and Goodluck were released shortly after, Gani was
subjected to a protracted detention in Gashua, located some 56 kilometres
from Damaturu, the Yobe state capital in one of the most harrowing
and excruciating detention ever. His activities and legal pursuit
loom large in the Nigerian bar. He has handled over 5000 cases spanning
from the Magistrate to the Supreme Courts.
Even Gani’s
most formidable contestant, President Obasanjo acknowledges this
fact. “By this feat, you rank easily as one of our country’s most
hardworking and consistent learned men. A most interesting aspect
of this rating is that you have been involved in some of the most
challenging and controversial cases in Nigeria’s legal history”,
Obasanjo wrote in a congratulatory message sent to Gani on his 64th
birthday. For his tireless effort, the Students of the University
of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University gave him the title of Senior
Advocate of the Masses (SAM) in 1988. This title for many years
haunted the members of the Legal Practitioners and Privileges Committee
which prefer to play ostrich, denying Gani the SAN title even as
the lawyer’s prowess both in the practice and writing of law became
unassailable. The committee was compelled to honour him with the
SAN title last year. He promises to be guided by the10-point programme
of the National Conscience Party (NCP).
The kernel of
the programme focuses on employment, food, health care, housing,
education, water, electricity, transportation, telecommunications
and security. To sanitise the Nigerian society, he says he will
pursue “four fundamental steps” which will touch on corruption,
unemployment, interest rates on borrowed funds and exchange rate
of the Naira. According to Gani, the bane of all the policies and
programmes of governments in Nigeria, past and present, and the
activities of both the private and public sectors in our society
is one fundamental factor-corruption. “Therefore corruption must
be confronted frontally, decisively, courageously and brutally.
We must approach the culture of corruption from the epicentre of
the Nigerian society, i.e. the corridors of power”, he said. Sounding
almost like the iron cast programme enunciated by late elder statesman,
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Gani is resolved to probe the private finances
of all those who have held public offices either as Heads of State,
ministers, governors, commissioners, legislators, heads of parastatals
etc. from January 15, 1966 to May 29,2003 via the creation of a
Ministry of Anti-Corruption. This ministry is expected to work in
close collaboration with the State Security Service (SSS), Directorate
of Military Intelligence (DMI), National Intelligence Agency (NIA),
the Nigeria Police Force, the Interpol and other friendly intelligence
agencies abroad.
Their brief
is to find out and compile the nation’s loots kept in foreign vaults
and to investigate the assets of all former public office holders,
including buildings, shares and stocks, and so on, whether at home
or abroad. Gani also conceives of a Ministry of Employment and Social
Security to collect statistics of all able-bodies and disabled unemployed
Nigerians starting with unemployed to non-graduates. Policy measures,
according to Gani, will be put in place to compel all ministries,
parastatals and all fleshy, buoyant and prosperous enterprises,
companies, businesses, banks, etc. that have been declaring fat
profits to employ a portion of the registered unemployed Nigerians
into their establishments. He was critical of the high interest
rates on borrowed funds which hovers between 30 to 35% and the exchange
rate of the Naira which goes for 142 to the Dollar at the autonomous
market, arguing that it is a dis-incentive to any productive venture
in the country. Taking a cue from the Federal Reserve Bank of America
which intervened 11 times between January and November 2001 to peg
interest rate at less than 2%, Gani says he will endeavour to reduce
the interest rate within three months to not more than 3%. He promise
to “work consciously to ensure that within six months of our taking
office, $1 will exchange for N10 and before we leave office, improvement
in the state of health of the economy will have salutary impact
on the exchange rate regime such that Nigerians will once again,
as it was in the far distant past, be proud of their national currency
and possession of foreign currency will no longer be an obsession”.
It may however not be smooth sail for the radical lawyer as critics
are already punching holes in his programmes.
They see his
economic programmes which borders on rigid controls of the economy
as unworkable. “It is not that simplistic to peg interest rate at
2% and the exchange rate to N10 to the Dollar”, a political analyst
said last week. Gani’s stance on corruption may proof the sour point
as many forces will stake whatever they have to ensure that a “Mr
Clean” in the frame of Awolowo is denied entry into Aso Rock. Some
others say the corruptive electoral system in the country is already
skewed against the emergence of the hard fighting lawyer.
“Gani’s programmes
and action may be genuine but it takes more than that to win election
in Nigeria”, noted a Lagos based editor. First published in the
National Interest, Volume 2, No 482 on Sunday, May 5, 2002.
|
