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Tag: Fasheun

  • OPC founder Fasheun is dead

    Founder of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) Dr Frederick Fasehun is dead.

    He was aged 83.

    Senior Special Adviser on Media, to Fasehun, Mr Adeoye Jolaosho, disclosed this in Lagos, on Saturday.

    He said the OPC chieftain died at about 1am, Saturday at the intensive care unit of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital Ikeja (LASUTH).

    “Baba took ill on Wednesday and was rushed to the intensive care unit of LASUTH.

    ” He died early hours of today. We are all devastated,” he said.

    Fasehun was an active member of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).

    He was born in Ondo on September 25, 1938 in Ondo, Ondo state.

    He began his education late, entering primary school at the age of 13 at Saint Matthews Roman Catholic School, Ondo.

    He later moved to  Saint Peter’s Teacher’s Training College, Akure, also in Ondo state. But he was expelled from school, because of his non-conformity with Catholicism. Fasehun was then admitted to Ondo Boys High School, where he completed his secondary education in less than three years, with a Grade One distinction.

    His brother offered him a scholarship to study science at Blackburn College in the UK.  He furthered his education at Aberdeen University College of Medicine. He also studied at the Liverpool Postgraduate School after which he had a Fellowship at the Royal College of Surgeons.

    In 1976, he studied acupuncture in China under a joint World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Development Scholarship Program.

    On his return in  1977, he set up an Acupuncture Unit at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).

    He resigned in 1978 and immediately set up the Besthope Hospital and Acupuncture Centre in Lagos.

    His Acupuncture Centre once earned a reputation as Africa’s first for the Chinese medical practice.

     

    NAN

  • Why UPN will not participate in Ekiti poll – Fasheun

    The Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) on Wednesday said it would not participate in the Ekiti governorship polls slated for June 21.

    The party, however, said it would take part in the Osun governorship polls in August.

    The UPN National Chairman, Dr. Frederick Fasheun, told journalists in Lagos that his party was excluded from the Ekiti governorship election by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rules and regulations.

    “The UPN ran short of time according to INEC’s guidelines and so cannot participate.

    “However, we will participate and intend to win the Osun polls,’’ he said.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that INEC had on May 22 presented a certificate of registration to UPN with effect from April 17.

    Fasheun, however, said the party supported calls by some Ekiti and Osun people that local government elections must be concluded ahead of the governorship polls in the states.

     

  • ‘How Fasheun hijacked revived UPN from me’

    Ola Olateju, an honorary lecturer at the Department of Political and Cultural Studies, Swansea University, United Kingdom, in this brief encounter told Andrew Oyafemi that Oodua People’s Congress founder, Dr. Frederick Fasheun, hijacked the idea of reviving Unity Party of Nigeria ( UPN) from him. 

    Mr. Ola Olateju an honorary lecturer at the Department of Political and Cultural Studies, Swansea University, United Kingdom, has accused Dr. Fredrick Fasheun of hijacking his idea of reviving the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN).

    In an encounter with The Nation in Lagos, Olateju said, “I initiated the idea of Unity Party of Nigeria. Early this year, after looking into the political terrain, I found out that virtually all the political parties dominating the political landscape of Nigeria are not different from each other. Ideologically, they are barren, programme wise, they are not different, and when it comes to party ownership I found out that virtually all the political parties are owned by individuals or group of leaders and not by the people.

    By the time I looked at all these scenario, I felt that something must be done, and I felt that if we don’t know where we are going to, we should know where we are coming from. So, I invited few Nigerians, who are either doing their PhD or working in UK, we all agreed to go back to Nigeria with some benefit for the people. I don’t believe it is until you buy cars or lots of materials that they say you have brought something back to the people. Why don’t you go back with ideas for the people. We have been there, we have seen how their system works, we have seen our political parties operate, why don’t we now learn from this and take it back home. Virtually everybody agreed that we should go back and get something done, but then where do we start from? That was the fundamental question we put across that day and then we looked at various political parties. We found out that if we  go  to any of them, we will end up being swallowed, because the parties won’t belong to the people. So, I sowed the idea of going back to Unity Party of Nigeria. We agreed there is no law in Nigeria that says an old party cannot be resuscitated. I don’t see why people are trying to cut off with the past, trying to start something fresh. Why can’t they go back to say NPN, PRP GNPP, UPN, go back and start from where they stopped and move the political terrain forward?

    We know that Balarabe Musa did it in the north by bringing in PRP, even though PRP had been deregistered because of lack of resources to win election or mobilize people. I am also aware that NAP was resuscitated by Tunji Braitwait. So, if those two can do that, what has made those of us that call ourselves Awoists to abandon our Awoism? That is why I said let us go back to Unity Party of Nigeria.

    On how OPC leader, Dr. Frederick Fasheun came into the picture, Olateju said, “Some of us were saddled with the responsibility to come to Nigeria to talk to people here and there, to sensitise people about the project and when we got good feelers, they asked me to move on. I was made the National Coordinator from the beginning because I initiated the idea, and because I still have my PhD programme in the UK, I felt we should have some elders, especially the old Awoists, so that they can come and continue while we provide the foot work for them and source resources here and there. It was on that basis that I went to Dr. Fredrick Fasheun, even though I knew he was never an Awoist. He was never a member of UPN and even if he was, he must have been an ordinary supporter or voter. But because of my love and respect for him as a person, out of the three names suggested, I picked Fasheun. I went to him.

    I went with Barry Salau and others to acknowledge his leadership. I also wrote a letter to Mama Awolowo, informing her that we were about to resuscitate UPN, and I told her that our leader, Dr Fasheun, Publicity Secretary, Barry Salau, with the others and I will be coming to visit her very soon.

    “So, Fasheun accepted to be leader, but we did not know he accepted the offer to take away the party from us and personalise it.

    When we fixed the EXCOs, they met in his hotel on May 19 of this year and the EXCOs were ratified and they all signed the INEC registration form and gave it to the secretary, Abubakar Sokoto, now the Ag National Chairman and I travelled back to the UK, without knowing that my leader and comrade, Dr. Fasheun had another intention.

    “The moment I left, he retrieved the INEC form from the secretary, and then went to make fresh copies of the INEC forms. Then, he handed others over to a contractor who only saw the advert of UPN, now picked him as the national coordinator, handed over the forms to him and two other guys and asked them to start looking for fresh people that can be presented to INEC as the officers of the party.

    So, Fasheun sidelined all of us who put together the party and chose fresh hands to be registered but INEC disappointed him by not registering the party. On that basis, we quickly put in place a new set of EXCOs and set Abubakar Sokoto as the Ag National Chairman of the party

  • Why I supported Al- Mustaspha’s release – Fasheun

    Why I supported Al- Mustaspha’s release – Fasheun

    The Founder of the Odua People’s Congress (OPC), Dr Frederick Fasheun, on Monday in Kano advanced reasons on why he supported the release of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, the former Chief Security officer of the late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha.

    The OPC leader, who explained his reasons to the Yoruba community in Kano, said that it was based on his personal conviction that the Yoruba race is detribalized and always in the forefront for fight against injustice.

    Fasheun, who accompanied Al-Mustapha to Kano shortly after his release from the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons last Friday said he threw his weight behind the freedom, granted the former CSO because he was exonerated on the issue by a competent court of the land.

    The OPC founder said that all patriotic Yoruba race should be grateful to God that nothing happened to Al-Mustapha throughout his 15 years in Kiikiri Prison, pointing out that all he was doing was to demonstrate to the world that “the Yorubas are detribalised and always stand by the truth and for justice to prevail.”

     

  • Declare June 12 Nigeria’s unity day, Fasehun urges FG

    Declare June 12 Nigeria’s unity day, Fasehun urges FG

    Dr Fredrick Fasehun, Founder of the Odu’a People’s Congress, on Tuesday in Lagos urged the Federal Government to proclaim June 12 Nigeria’s unity day.

    Fasehun told a news conference that June 12 was the truest mark of Nigerian unity.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the historic June 12, 1993 presidential elections, which most observers adjudged fair and free, was believed to have been won by the late business mogul, Chief M.K.O Abiola.

    However, on June 23, the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida-led administration annulled the election and subsequently handed over power to an interim government headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan, a businessman.

    Fasehun said: “Just as the Federal Government has declared May 29 Democracy Day, it should consider proclaiming June 12 unity day.

    “June 12 should be our unity day because on that day, all the constituent units of Nigeria spoke with near-unanimity and elected Abiola their president.’’

    Fasehun, the interim National Chairman of the yet-to-be registered Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), said that Nigerians could not forget June 12 as it had become part of the country’s political history.

    “We remember the rape of June 12. We remember the pains of June 12. We remember the dislocation caused by its cancellation.

    “We remember the lives lost, the limbs lost and the livelihoods lost because of June 12,” he said.

    The politician urged President Goodluck Jonathan to work out a compensation plan for the families of Nigerians, who died in the struggle for democracy.

    “As part of events marking the last Democracy Day, President Goodluck Jonathan announced a N5.7 billion compensation for victims of the 2011 post-election violence.

    “Some governors had made similar gestures in the past. We demand that government should immediately expand the scope of the current compensation plan to include victims of June 12,’’ he said.

    Fasehun also criticised a comment credited to the 2011 Presidential Candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, faulting emergency rule in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States.

    He called for a national conference as a way out of the nation’s myriad of problems.

    “National Assembly members should concentrate on their core business of law-making and leave making a new constitution to a sovereign national conference of the federating units.

    “The lawmakers should no longer stand in the way of the conference,” he said.