Gani: Death Of A Great Lawyer
By Reuben Abati

Chief Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi, Gani for short as he was known, touched our lives in significant ways and left a great impression on the minds of the power-drunk Nigerian elite whose shortcomings he exposed and condemned, his colleagues in the temple of justice, who even when they did not agree with his methods, could not but admire his special place in the growth of Nigerian jurisprudence due to the emphasis of his practice and its distinction, the quality of his advocacy, his industry and his sterling ability to bring the law in line with social justice. Of course, he will also be missed by ordinary Nigerians: students, market women, the poor, the dispossessed voter, the cheated labourer, the angry, the alienated, whose interests he defended, often pro bono. Gani gave the voiceless a voice at great personal risk. His voice was heard loud and clear on all the major issues of his time relating to justice and injustice. He was a most courageous man who took on our collective battles and phrased them as radical imperatives and being not one to shy away from battles, he stood firmly at the barricades. He led protests and whenever he was arrested and imprisoned by the military authorities, he bore the harrassment with dignity. He remained uncowed.

His most important legacy in my view, is his projection through personal example of the values of commitment, consistency, courage, patriotism, and principles. He was a principled man. He was a courageous man. He was a great man. With him on national issues, you knew where you stood. Crowds of men and women looked up to him, but he did not follow the crowd. Gani led the crowd with the quality of his thought. With his death, yesterday, the radical left in Nigeria, the progressive camp of Nigerian politics lost one other of its icons. Sadly, that community is recording too many losses lately: with Ola Oni gone, with Omafume Onoge dead, with Claude Ake no longer with us, and now Gani, the left has every reason to mourn especially now that opportunism is becoming triumphant and the destination of ideological engagement is predictable in many instances.

It can be said of Gani that he was a blessing unto the country of his birth, and even additionally that he was a gift to the legal profession, to Nigerian politics and to us, the Nigerian people. Not too many great men enjoy the pleasure of being celebrated in their lifetimes. Gani lived to witness the appreciation of his contributions to the making of Nigeria and his special contributions to the promotion of human rights and justice. It was public knowledge that he had been ill for a while: battling with cancer, but even Gani's illness was a lesson for us all. He bore adversity with great equanimity. From his sick bed, he continued to issue statements on national issues. When his death was announced yesterday morning, it was like grief foretold and the confirmation of our worst fears. But we can still proudly say after the poet, that "Death, Be Not Proud." The graveyard is full of many bones, but it is not all bones that disappear into the bowels of the earth, forgotten, unmourned. Gani deserves to be mourned, deeply and widely; and in the very bones of his remains lies all the relevant ways in which he has enriched our space. So he is dead but he lives with us and we should be thankful for his life and its many riches and fruits.

It must be said that the legal profession will never forget him. Law is a social modulator. Law is a stabilising force, the strongest vehicle for asserting the rule of law, the lighting rod of man's humanity, pointing to the difference between him and apes. Gani, more than any other, was the most determined, and the most vociferous defender of the rule of law. That phrase now has become a slogan, misappropriated by those who stumble upon it in a speech and then parrot it because of the niceness of its sound, but for Gani it was a cultural imperaive, that men, all men, are deserving of the protection of the law and that any attempt to derogate from that natural and legal right must be resisted by men of conscience. He challenged attempts by the ruling elite, the military or the civilian, to ride roughshod over the common man. He detested cant and hypocrisy which have always been in generous and plentiful supply in Nigerian politics. He waged war in the court rooms, on the streets and on the pages of the media. He was a delightful source of quotable quotes. He penned endless articles to the newspapers and was always prepared to speak on television. He was a different kind of lawyer. He was one of the most distinguished in the profession and in all ways, he was a member of the Nigerian aristocracy, but his politics was that of the common man. And he was most sincere. He showed younger lawyers, an alternative mode of practice: using the law to advance the common good. His kindred would include Alao Aka-Bashorun.

But the more important achievement in this regard was his emergence as role model for younger lawyers. Traces of his influence can be found in Femi Falana's advocacy, and in Olisa Agbakoba, Ayo Obe, Bamidele Aturu, Fred Agbaje, and Festus Keyamo, His Chambers at Anthony Village in Lagos, was a laboratory for the production of well-groomed lawyers. Even those who did not go away with a part of his radicalism, went on to sustain a tradition of hardwork, diligence and commitment to the fine points of law. This particular crowd will never forget him. Lawyers who did not train in his Chambers will be no less grateful. Gani Fawehinmi has been the most ardent chronicler of developments in the Nigerian legal system in the last 50 years or so. His many books on aspects of the law remain major reference points for all lawyers and jurists. His law library is also one of the best equipped in the country. Gani invested in knowledge, his courage was that of a cognoscenti and an illuminati. Judges respected him, his adversaries in the law court learnt very early not to treat him lightly. His power of forensic analysis and cross-examination was formidable. His presence in the court room was a statement in itself. There were lawyers of the conservative mould who also inspired great confidence, and whose talents no one could trifle with, but Gani came to every case, well prepared as every lawyer should be, and around him was always a touch of drama. He was, if we may say so, a celebrity lawyer, for whom the court room was not enough. Indeed, the entire Nigerian space was his constituency. His books, and the many cases in which he was involved, a significant number of which are cited as locus classicus, will keep him forever in the bright sections of the annals of Nigerian law,

Something must be said again about Gani's refusal to go with the pack. He was prepared to stand alone. Many of his colleagues, in the Nigerian Bar Association and elsewhere hated him for this. They said he loved his own voice and that he was not a team player. They said he was a slave driver who liked to dominate his environment. More senior colleagues throught Gani was a dramatist of every play of his own making. His personal friends with whom he disagreed on issues of principle thought he was disloyal and that he was always too willing to scarifice his own friends. Yes, Gani was human, he had his own frailities. But who isn't? And who doesn't? Whatever may have been his shortcomings however, is more than compensated for by the fact that here was a man whose good intentions were not in doubt. He was prepared to sacrifice himself in the pursuit of those good intentions. That he lived as long as he did is even surprising. Asthmatic, he continually knocked his head against the military, enduring detentions and assault, not because he was looking for contracts, or money or patronage, but because he wanted Nigeria to be a better place. He was indeed a patriot.

Before his death, we had started missing him. The mere fact that Gani was ill made so many unhappy. His death now makes us feel like orphans. He was a self-made man who made a choice and who stood by that choice and who through consistent self-application, became distinguished. Future law students and lawyers and even entrepreneurs and civil rights activists will always have Gani Fawehinmi to contend with as role model and his interventions as paradigm. The likes of General Ibrahim Babangida will also never forget Gani. He was a thorn in the flesh of the military, the feudalists, the vote-riggers and all pretenders to the throne. He defended the freedom of the press, the right to liberty, the right to protest, the right to form political parties, the right to the freedom of assembly, and the freedom of movement, It was as if the whole of the Chapter Four of the Nigerian Constitution was made for him to defend.

Gani was the poor man's hero. His contributions to the growth of Nigerian case law on human rights is non-pareil. He stands shoulders above all other lawyers, including his contemporaries in that genre. He was rich, but every poor man looked up to him. He was in some ways, the Fela of the legal profession: Iconoclastic and courageous, for many years he did not have the title of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria. Students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, in protest, conferred on him the title of Senior Advocate of the Masses. When eventually he got the SAN, it didn't quite matter. It was the work of his hand that had long recommended him, bringing him more important local and international honours. Gani, in spite of all his radicalism believed in Nigeria. He wanted the best for this country. He had a self-imposed rule of never criticising Nigeria abroad. If he had to criticise anyone, he did it on Nigerian soil, and to the person's face.

The attitude towards him by the legal establishment was, for emphasis, at best ambivalent. On many ocassions, he stood up against the Nigerian Bar Association and insisted on the supremacy of principle. And so he was not very popular with both the professional Establishment and the Nigerian Establishment. But in death, Gani is likely to be even greater. Beyond his public engagements, there were lessons to be learnt also from his personal life. He was a polygamist, but he made polygamy look natural. If he had any private turmoils, he had enough strength of character to manage them. He was also devoted to his mother. He was an only son and he showed every one that mother is gold. In everything, he provided an alternative; in law, politics and activism. In law, in particular, he demonstrated beyond doubt that the purpose of law practice shoud not be primitive acquisition but public service. There will be in the next few days testimonies about his generousity. Gani encouraged scholarship: he wrote books and donated them to libraries and newspaper houses. He encouraged other lawyers to make use of his library. He gave scholarships to indigent students.

He was also proud of his background as an Ondo man. Whenever the history of that town in the 20th century and early 21st cenutry is written, Gani will occupy one of the early chapters. He drew great attention to Ondo. He was a source of pride to his people. Gani's overall vision of society is that the country can be made better for the benefit of all and sundry. Unfortunately, he is now dead and gone and Nigeria is still at the crossroads. His vision of a greater Nigeria remains unfulfilled. He died, so to speak, in the course of this seemingly endless struggle to make Nigeria great. We are consoled by the fact there are enough people to keep the flame of activism burning and that Gani, one of the shining lights of that struggle, shall not be forgotten. We will miss him.

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article02//indexn2_html?pdate=060909&ptitle=Gani:%20Death%20Of%20A%20Great%20Lawyer

It is finished
Nothing more to say
birth is not the beginning death is not the end

RIP