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WHAT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT HIM AS AN UNCONVENTIONAL POLITICIAN AFTER HIS DECLARATION AS A PRESIDENTIAL ASPIRANT ON 22ND APRIL, 2002 In an interview with the Guardian on Saturday, April 27, 2002, page 17 after Gani’s declaration as a presidential aspirant, Ebere Ahanihu introduced him with the following words: “Chief Gani Fawehinmi is one of the few Nigerians who do not need any introduction anywhere in the country. His fame literally walks ahead of him. It was not an achievement obtained on a platter of gold. In his career as a lawyer/social critic/human rights activist, he has visited more prisons in the country than any other Nigerian, living or dead. In defence of the poor and downtrodden, the man, popularly called Gani by his admirers, is ever ready to put his life on the line. It is for this group of Nigerians that he has decided to go into politics, to contest for the highest job in the land, to prevent what he sees as the ‘catastrophic slide into total chaos’. In return, he believes strongly that the masses of poor Nigerians will turn out en masse to vote for him, and that he will defeat the incumbent President Olusegun Obasanjo come the presidential election next year. But if the powers that be gang up against him and rig him out of the election, he warned that they would not live to enjoy the stolen victory.” In an analysis in The Anchor newspaper of Friday, May 24, 2002 page 9 titled: "Promise of Gani", Olakunle Abimbola described Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN and the NCP’s programme thus: “Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s NCP appears to transcend all the three political parties whose ideological difference is no more than that between six and half-a-dozen. Besides, Chief Fawehinmi stands for universal ideals – crusade against oppression and a better deal for the poor-agenda not likely to be sectionalised or tribalised. …NCP’s well-articulated 10-care programme – employment, food, health, housing, education, water, electricity, transport, telecommunications and security – is the most detailed in the polity for now. Cynics might dismiss the whole thing as unworkable and cheap populism, but then, it’s all too easy to dismiss than to create. Then there are economic programmes with specific targets-to-increase the naira/dollar parity to N10 (up from the present N142) within six months of assuming duty, and to cut interest rates to three per cent (from the current 30 per cent to 35 per cent) within three months of taking power. Too good to be true? Maybe, but at least the NCP has set a verifiable target for itself. Chief Fawehinmi and his NCP hold the promise of a new political dawn.” In the Daily Independent of May 27 – June 2, 2002, John Oseze-Langley in an article titled “The remaking of Gani Fawehinmi” wrote: “Chief Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi (64), erudite lawyer, publisher, social activist and philanthropist may not be cast in the mould of great philosophers like Harold Lasky, Tolstoy or even Karl Marx but he sure has some ideas bordering on social revolutionary consciousness, strong enough to find him a place in our history. Such ideas, he has not failed to put into use in the last four decades as occasion demanded. A highly experienced, vibrant ambassador of Victory College, Ikare, Ondo State; orator and theoretician, he hates cheats and anything in khaki with a passion. He detests injustice dressed in whatever garb, even as a school boy with his impressionable values. There is a school of thought which posits that although the author of ‘The People’s Right At All Levels' is better appreciated for his conquests as a lawyer, Gani would, with or without law, still have posed serious problems for our corrupt leadership over the years. He is believed to be endowed with such unusual extra-sensory perceptive powers as to smell a corrupt or improper act in public office, miles away, without failing. This happens quite frequently even in a country known for very few upright people bold enough to stand to be counted! So Gani has, as fate would have it, become a one-man-riot squad fighting vices with very deep roots. …on the side of history, there is an enviable place carved out for him. He is, to date, the most visible, even if not effectively the most articulate, public figure to survive the first generation of politicians from Macaulay to Shagari. In crusading for a moral order, he has been consistent, even fanatical. In the people’s domain, he is the uncrowned King” On the plight of the deaf in the country and failure of the present government to cater for them, Olu G. Ajayi, President of the Brotherhood Society of the Deaf in a letter titled “President Obasanjo Has Failed The Deaf” published in The Anchor newspaper of July 24, 2002 said: “We are urgently calling on Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN) as the NCP leader to come to our assistance because we know for sure that he has the solution for the plights of the deaf and the poor masses. So, President Obasanjo and his INEC should please register NCP now!” Soyombo Opeyemi in a published letter in The Guardian of Friday, July 19, 2002 page 12 berated the Human Rights organisations for their failure to criticise Obasanjo and PDP’s government, but singled out Chief Gani Fawehinmi as a lone voice in the letter titled “Gani Fawehinmi: The Lone Voice”. He was quoted to have said: “However, Chief Fawehinmi’s frustration offers another food for thought. Are human rights organisations not responsible, in part, for the present mess and stagnation? What did they fight for? Was it to get the military put off power? Was it to have a good and responsible democratic government? If these were the reasons, why the lull – the culpable silence – since the present administration came to power? Why not put Obasanjo on his toes from the very out-set? Why did they and the press not wage an impeccable war against the PDP government to force it to the path of accountability, welfarism and the rule of law? This is somewhat a paradox, an irony: to have fought so gallantly and sacrificed so enormously only to concede the ultimate victory to the very agents of the defeated enemy is simply inexplicable. To his credit, Chief Fawehinmi did not keep quiet for any moment. He kept on warning the nation to be on its guard. But he appeared and still appears to be the lone voice in the vast wilderness of passivity and indifference.” |
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Copyright 2005 Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), All Rights Reserved. |
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