Babafemi Ojudu, Managing Editor of The NEWS/PM News, tells the story of his lengthy association with Gani
It’s strange that I’m speaking about Gani in past tense. It feels unreal. But there is no escaping the fact of death and its finality.
I first met Gani in 1976. It was about the time I was going to my final year in the secondary school. The meeting was facilitated by my school principal late Chief Adejuwon, who recommended me for a competition for a scholarship in Akure. The competition happened to have been organised by Gani Fawehinmi. Gani and King Sunny Ade had teamed up to award a one-year scholarship to final year students of secondary schools. I went and competed and I was one of the 30 students selected. I was given N100, which was our tuition fee for that year. From then on, I became interested in him. I started reading about him in the papers, following his activities and wanted to model my life after him. After secondary school, I gained admission into the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). Gani visited the university, many times, to deliver lectures. And as soon as we came out of the university, we had to join the struggle for democracy and human rights, and the place to go was Gani and late Alao Aka Bashorun’s chambers, late Dr Beko Ransome Kuti’s home – clinic and Fela’s Shrine.
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It is safe to say that like the immortal Nelson Mandela the struggle was his life. I think in a way he succeeded at this his calling. Gani was largely responsible for the multi-party democracy we now have, the vibrancy of the NGOs , although he himself shunned the allure of the American dollar. He gave so much for the freedom of the press. He achieved the incomparable in expanding the rights of Nigerians. For this and many more he suffered so much.
We cannot but be grateful to him for his love and sacrifice for his country. When people lamented his ‘early death’, I told a couple of my friends that it was a miracle he lived to be 70. Looking at what was packed into the seven decades of his life he may have lived the life of five men in one.
I was opportune to see and sometimes experienced some of the detention centres where he was made to spend some of the productive years of his life. Man, to go into those places several times and come out alive and healthy (?) tells us the kind of metal in which Gani was forged.
On one of his numerous arrests in the early 1990s, he was brought to court from Panti and thereafter flown in a Hercules plane to Maiduguri and then driven for five hours to a prison in Gashua. Constructed with mud, it was nightly buffeted by sandstorm and other elements, certainly not dignifying enough as pen for goats. That was the condition the Babangida – Halilu Akilu dictatorship contrived fit for this man of noble intentions. His whereabouts and place of detention was not to be made known.
I was in the office one evening when a call came in that Gani had been located in Gashua. I rushed to meet his wife Ganiat with this “good news”. So, I, his wife and a lawyer in his chambers, Mr. Taiwo Kupolati, had to trace him to Gashua. When we got to the prison, the environment in which he was kept was depressing for a man used to comfort. For somebody of his calibre to be kept in a cell a goat would consider squalid was dehumanising. He was there for a few days, collapsed and was spirited to the hospital, and by his own account later, almost lifeless.
Gani was guest of most of the ghastly and brutal prisons in this country: Sokoto, Gashua, Makurdi, Ikoyi, Kirikiri or Kuje, to mention a few. While thanking Gani for this sacrifice we also need to thank his family. Particularly his two wives , the children and his late mother, as well as every one who has ever worked for him. They all suffered a great deal as accomplices in Gani’s life journey to chart a path of decency for our society.
Going back to the Gashua trip, it was a period when the security was all over the place, trying to ensure that he had no contact with home and his loved ones. Ganiat had to disguise on our way to Maiduguri through the airport and then by road to Gashua . We got to a ramshackle hotel in Gashua, perhaps the only one in town then, at about 10 pm. We checked into our rooms and I went out to the front office to demand for water to bath. The almost illiterate receptionist and manager of the hotel said he could not get me water until he returned from a place he was going. ‘Where? “ I demanded to know. ‘To the State Security Service’, he said and further explained that the hotel has an express order to report new guests to the security men. I knew immediately we were in trouble. I was able to summon the calmness to give the impression that there was no problem.
As soon as he left I went to Ganiat’s room, called on Kupolati and told her we were in trouble and had to get out of the hotel. We fled into the night. We didn’t know where to go, but we felt any other place was safer than where we were. I suggested we try our luck at a secondary school, which I believed there would be corps members who could house us for the night. So we got three bikes and headed for a secondary school. When we got there, I asked for the corps members in the school and we were shown to their quarters. They were happy, actually excited, to receive us. They provided us with accommodation and told us that, fortunately for us, Gani had been moved to the hospital, and that the person in charge of his case at that hospital was a corps member and that he was in touch with the fellow. One of them, a Lagosian, left to return with this medical doctor, a northerner.
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But one good thing, which illustrated the fact that Gani had done a lo of good was the fact that the medical doctor was expelled from the University of Maiduguri and Gani fought up to the Supreme Court to get him reinstated. He became a medical doctor and was serving in Gashua at the point when Gani was taken there. So, he took us to see him on his hospital bed. We met Gani battling for his life. He managed to talk to us and gave instructions to the wife on how to manage his affairs in his absence. We went back to the corpers quarters and a combination of sandstorm and mosquitoes will not allow us sleep for a minute till the wee hours of the morning when we made it to the park and scampered back to Maiduguri enroute Lagos.
He was in jail, he was slammed with libel by Halilu Akilu assisted by Chief Rotimi Williams with the intent of defanging him by seizing his home as well as his means of livelihood, his law chambers. Of recourse we insisted Gani shall not walk alone. We, his compatriots formed the group Gani Fawehinmi Solidarity Association ( GFSA). We travelled round the country mobilising contributions from sympathetic Nigerians should Akilu and Williams managed to rail road the courts into giving judgement against Gani. I was the secretary of GFSA. It was for me a life experience. I remember today those nights when in company of Dr Osagie Obayuwana, now Attorney General of Edo State, Sam Omatseye, Chairman Editorial Board of The Nation and many of our other compatriots we drive round the streets of Lagos writing on the wall Free Gani Now graffiti and pasting posters. A night was when we were chased into his compound in GRA , Ikeja , LAGOS with guns by agents of the Babangida regime. Whatever risk we might have taken in the fight to free Gani was well deserved by this man who came back from England to Nigeria, set up a law chamber to be the advocate of the people and an advocate for his country. He was my benefactor, my friend, my mentor, my inspiration. He stood for me pro bono in the cases I filed against Babangida when he sealed up the African Concord. He stood for us in our battles against illegal detention, against proscription of our publications from 1993 to 1998. He stood for us in the numerous cases of libel instituted against our publications by those in power whose dark, stinking , inner recesses we shined light on to their discomfiture. He gave of his wealth to see to the realisation of our dream when we called it quit with the late MKO Abiola to set out on our own.
If there is something that Gani was singularly ill-equipped for, it was partisan politics. He could never have succeeded as a politician in this kind of environment. May be he could have succeeded if he had come at a time when people held on to principles, programmes and ideologies. By the time he joined partisan politics, the atmosphere had been made toxic by Babangida. But it would be incorrect to say his foray into politics was a misadventure. When I read all of these tributes to him by so many Nigerians from the East, North, West and South, I just keep asking myself why they didn’t join him to realise his goals, to bring about a new Nigeria. Why didn’t they contribute to his political campaigns? Why didn’t they vote for him? Having succeeded in the human rights and constitutional campaigns, he thought he could offer himself for service to Nigeria. That was not the first time, mind you. In 1979, when the ban on politics was lifted, he joined the Unity Party of Nigeria with the intent of contesting for the governorship of Ondo State. But, at that time, Awolowo asked him to go and queue behind people like Chief Adekunle Ajasin and I think he was dissatisfied with that. He pulled out. The last coming was his second attempt.
Many have branded Gani as a dictator. To that, I will say
there’s no human being without his flaws. Here was a man who had his goal in life well designed and tailored, almost towards perfection. He did not suffer fools gladly. He knew what he wanted and was impatient about it. So, if you work for him and you are not measuring up in any way, he gets edgy with you, in that circumstance, may be he offended quite a number of people that worked with him. While some may see that as a character flaw, but he was a man who believed that his life depended on what he did. He liked his job to be done the way he thought it should be done. Anybody who appeared like a laggard around him was not welcome. He was suspicious of associates because all powers around him were ranged against him and therefore anybody could be a tool.
Gani was human. Very much so. He loved the good life, but was not vain. He loved his cars to be new at all times. If he bought a car now, in two years time, he’d dump that and buy a new one. He enjoyed his coffee up to a point. He travelled a lot and lived well. His suits were well cut. He once told me that each time he was going to court to argue a very tough case, what he did was to wake up with rock music. He’d put it on full blast and get himself primed by the music for the day’s task. As soon as he finished listening to the music, he’d pack his books, go to the court and put on a show comparable to a rock musician in a concert: shouting, gesticulating and all that. One particular thing that impressed me about him was his memory. He had a good recall of facts, dates and sections of the law. Wake him up at anytime and he’d deliver. Gani was meticulous. I am not sure there’s any material published in this country, from the moment he opened his chambers to the time he died, that he never collected. Whether it is a serious publication or what we call the junk ones, he’d get at least three copies of such. If there’s any book published in Nigeria or being launched anywhere, he would send his librarian, with cash, to go and pick up at least three copies. That was how his library became a very good resource centre for lawyers, journalists, researchers and others.
Whatever Gani was into, he insisted on being the driver. He would not see himself being in the passenger seat. There were occasions when groups were formed to struggle for the enthronement of democracy, and the moment he saw that they were not accepting his viewpoint, he pulled out. One can say that he is not an activist of the collective . He was a lone fighter, a lone ranger. He chose his battle and the way it was fought. He chose the medium of the battle, the means of the battle, and the weapon of the battle. If he found himself in the collective and people were still debating what the battle should be, the medium, and what the weapons of battle should be, he became impatient. Withdrawal, automatically, followed.
It could have been good if he had been able to put his thoughts in writing. But he didn’t do that. May be we can console ourselves with his numerous press interviews. I remember that sometime in the early 1990s, he commissioned me, Sam Omatseye and Dele Momodu to do his biography. We completed the work. The cover was designed and we handed it over to him. But, again, I think we were critical in some parts of the work and he was not comfortable with that. The book never saw the light of the day.
Gani, admirably, never drank. Women? Well, he was not apologetic for marrying two wives. I learnt later one was added to it. He told me he preferred to have as many wives as he wished rather than keeping mistresses. Of course, he knew that was dangerous for him considering the struggle that he found himself in. I think he was never quite into alcohol. I knew that he drank a lot of coffee, and later he told the story of when he was arrested and taken to the detention and gaolers said: ‘Chief, we know you love coffee, let’s give you some.’ And he said: Oh, so you know I love coffee?’ From then, he said he would never take coffee again. In those days when I went to see him, he’d say: ‘Femco, Femco, I know you are a lover of coffee.’ He would , go for a bottle of Maxwell coffee, a special roast which he had brought back from one of his trips outside and give it to me. He also loved swimming. That was one of the few social things he did. He used to go to swim at Sheraton Hotels and Towers on weekends, perhaps for medical purposes. He was not so sociable. Hardly did he go to parties. He used to receive quite a lot of invitations, but I am not sure he attended parties, the regular Yoruba owambe, birthdays, burials, naming, and weddings. It was rare to find him doing such. He even once claimed not to know who his neighbour was. That later changed when at a burial service for a neighbour of his who died in an air crash he told a crowd of mourners the fellow was responsible for his renovating his house.
Almost always, he was in the office or the house poring through his books, newspapers, magazines, granting interviews, attending to people’s needs and preparing for his legal and political battles.
On the internet, in the newspapers and in private discussion I have heard people agonise over who replaces Gani. I beg to disagree. I do not think we need another Gani or a hero in the mould of Gani. The individual action will not take us anywhere in this country. We all have to get off our butts and get on the street and demand change, positive change. Why do we always think others will come and do our jobs for us, solve our problems for us? If we all had come out in the 1980s and 90s and said look, we are not going to take this; if we had not left people like Gani, Beko, Soyinka and Enahoro, Aka Bashorun, Balarabe Musa, Abubarkar Umar to do the fighting for us, we probably would have found a solution to this myriad of problems confronting us today. So the idea of some people somewhere stepping into Gani’s shoes does not arise. I’d love a situation whereby we’ll resolve collectively that we are tired of this whole mess and that we want a change in this country. So, it’s left for Nigerians to demand for change. If they are not ready, too bad for them. Gani has done his own as an individual. He has completed his mission. He has satisfied his conscience and he has gone home to rest and his work is there for everybody, who believes that his ideals were noble enough to borrow from.
The truth is that the rank of committed human right campaigners is shrinking and quickly, too. We no longer have the kind of elements we had in the 1980s and 1990s. We’ve lost so many. Aka-Bashorun, the mercurial lawyer and human rights activist; Beko, ever fearless and courageous, are also gone; Fela is gone. I mean, the only person actually left to say the truth is Wole Soyinka, and the day we lose him, this country will be in a mess. Talking about that generation of Nigerians who committed their lives to the struggle without looking back, without being opportunistic, I mean, you take a Gani, Tai Solarin, Soyinka, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Beko Ransome Kuti, Ayodele Awojobi. Those are the elements. Now looking at the terrain in terms of who to follow, sincerely, the only person I can see is Wole Soyinka, and the man is above 75. That brings us back to my earlier thesis that the next stage of the struggle may not provide us with that individual to lead our onslaught on tyranny. We’ll all have to be at the barricades. It has to be a collective struggle because our generation and the generation behind us have not produced those kind of elements who we could say look, here is the Iroko that all the other trees will look up to. So, everybody will have to do his own little thing in his own corner, believing that it gathers up to become collective and probably change the country. If we fail to do that, too bad for Nigeria.
While it is sad that we lost him at this time, one will equally say that he has gone to have a deserved rest after all the struggle. This is one man that lived the life of ten men.
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