Not a few love to call him Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM) 2, after the incomparable Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, SAM (1938-2009), the original to get that accolade.
Femi Falana, SAN, who just turned 60, is not Gani Fawehinmi. But like Gani, the Nigerian establishment, for much long, denied him a professional distinction, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, that he eminently merited. That Mr. Falana has taken the silk today is both a tribute to the triumph of justice, equity and fair play, as it is a salute to the supreme and unbending belief in one’s cherished values.
In Nigerian law history, two major schools would appear to have evolved. The first school teems with lawyers that champion law for law’s sake. Their patron saint would clearly appear Nigeria’s first SAN, the late Chief Rotimi Williams (1920-2005) aka Timi the Law and Weight of Evidence, since his giant frame fairly conjured the formidable image of a legal Titan.
The second school ripples with lawyers, no less brilliant at law, but who see the law as an urgent and potent tool to help chisel the general society into a better shape. Gani sits clearly atop this pantheon of legal saints, for whom the Nigerian civil society owes eternal gratitude, especially during that terrible era of military rule. In this distinguished galaxy would sit the late Alao Aka-Bashorun (1930-2005), former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president (1987-1989), Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, on his exploit as first president of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), and of course, then young Turk, now a major force, both at law and social crusading, Mr. Falana.
Indeed, since joining Aka-Basorun’s People’s Chambers in 1983 as a fresh wig, after graduating from the Nigerian Law School and the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU), Mr. Falana chose a life of struggle — not for himself and family per se, but for society, then under military jackboot rule. So with Aka-Basorun before his exile, ill health and death, and for much longer with Gani, and the late Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, Falana was in every major campaign to fix his country.
He was part of the braves that, in September 1990, essayed a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) in Lagos. He was just seven years at the Bar. Though Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s junta crushed that attempt, it was the first serious notice, by the radical and progressive elements of Nigeria’s civil populace, that Nigerians were getting tired of Babangida’s transition to nowhere.
When Babangida’s cup ran over, and he rashly annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election which Bashorun MKO Abiola won, Falana was part of his nemesis: the carefully organised civil resistance to that criminal impunity. Though the mandate never got re-actualised, Falana and co. could claim the credit for not only claiming IBB’s scalp (forcing him to “step aside” from power) but ensuring neither Sani Abacha nor other venal military adventurists got lasting gains from that outrage. The eventual result was the hurried military withdrawal to the barracks to face their core duty and the rebirth of democracy in 1999.
But even at that, Femi Falana has, since 1999, seized the instrumentality of the law and his extensive reach within civil society, to further push the frontiers of responsible governance and citizens’ freedom. He is in and out of court to sue to either do the undone or stop a wrong action embarked upon. Every time, he has been a forceful and progressive articulator of the law and most times, like Gani before him, coming down hard on the side of the citizen, against the Leviathan government.
Even with the present democratic dispensation had come the high crime of rigging elections and trying to suborn the courts to keep the proceeds of fiddled votes. Again, Mr. Falana has been in the vanguard of those corps of lawyers that got many of these brazen electoral heists recovered.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s election in 2015 and his high profile war against corruption have put the judiciary’s foot to the fire, especially on the vexed issue of judicial corruption and the miscarriage of justice. Again, when other lawyers hee-haw, on the one hand condemning judicial corruption, but in another breath seeking some sickly solace in judicial esprit de corps, Falana is one of the few that have come out strongly on the side of justice, even against its blighted temple.
In the current effort, Falana has been an immeasurable support to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). If the war achieves its goal, and the judiciary is rid of criminal and compromising elements and the Nigerian judiciary regains its old respect and citizens can again get justice without much ado, then that success would be due to the crucial and unambiguous support by the likes of Femi Falana, in those very days of the judiciary’s institutional conspiracy against its own wellness and long- term sanity.
Many, of course, have charged Femi Falana, on account of his name popularity with the media, of the penchant to play to the gallery. That is no illegitimate charge. But suffice it to say: even with that, he would count among the very finest of his generation, in applying the law to fix the society.
For this, both Alao Aka-Basorun and Gani Fawehinmi must be proud of a worthy protégée hoisting that noble banner. But for Falana at 60, it’s morning yet on crusading day!
