On January 15, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja Branch held the 14th Chief Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lecture. The yearly event is held on the day the late Fawehinmi was called to bar, ADEBISI ONANUGA reports.
Lawyers, activists and students from tertiary institutions around the country converged on Lagos last week for the 14th Chief Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lecture. The event held at the Lagos Airport Hotel, Ikeja with the theme, “Federalism, Restructuring and Good Governance: Striking A Balance”. In attendance was the the former General Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Chief Frank Ovie Kokori, who was chairman of the event, while the royal father of the day was the Adeboruwa of Igbogbo, Oba Semiu Orimadegun Kasali, Femi Falana (SAN) among others.
In his opening remarks, Kokori recalled the events surrounding the June 12, 1993 elections won by the late Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola and the nationwide strike which he led his union to embark on and joined by Nigerians to get former General Ibrahim Babangida to revalidate the results of the election.
According to him, the June 12 elections were “the freest and cleanest election” ever held in the country.
“June 12 was when Nigerians stood up to liberate themselves and not October 1, 1960 (Independence Day)”, he said.
Kokori lamented that the military annulled that election. According to him, Nigeria never had the experience of freedom fighters like many other African countries and as such cannot appreciate what June 12 meant.
Kokori said he watched Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome Kuti, Femi Falana and others carry placards to protest the annulment of the election. He said if that had happened on Downing Street, London, those in authority would read their messages and listen to them.
Kokori said rather than join the protesters on the street, he called his ‘kitchen cabinet’ and they did what needed to be done, which was to implement the strike that paralysed the country for several weeks.
Veering from the strike, Kokori lamented that that he was being denied a federal appointment. “Me, symbol of freedom and democracy,” he said.
The former NUPENG scribe explained that sometime in September last year, he got a call from the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, informing him that President Muhammadu Buhari had appointed him Chairman of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), an organisation set up to manage Nigerian workers’ pension funds.
He said the minister congratulated him and invited him to Abuja for the inauguration of the NSITF board.
Kokori said he arrived in Abuja with other members of the board, only for the minister to inform them that he was going for his mother’s burial and that the inauguration has been postponed.
He said he had been to Abuja several times but the inauguration is yet to hold.
“Up till today and four months after my appointment by the President, the board is yet to be inaugurated,”he said.
According to another speaker at the event, Seun Kuti, son of the late Afro beat king, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Nigeria is still under western imperialism, which he said has also taken over the courts. He claimed that a magistrate court in Lagos refused to allow him bail a friend who was “unjustly” accused. Seun said the complainant, after getting his friend locked up, never appeared in court. According to him, the justice system in Nigeria does not represent Nigerians but western imperialists.
Seun Kuti, who was ‘yabbing satirically’ like his late father, took a swipe at the government saying that the constitution did not make room for restructuring and that the laws have no room for federalisim.
“It is unfortunate that we motherland people just accept whatever name and appellation given to us by the western powers,” he said.
To him, “there cannot be true federalism, restructuring and good governance until those of us at the bottom start resisting those perpetuating corruption at the top”.
However, while the lecture lasted, there was nothing in the air to indicate that Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), one of the persons invited as a contributor to the main lecture delievered by a former Dean, Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Prof. Demola Popoola, was going to have an unholy welcome.
Chief Ozekhome, who arrived at the venue at about 1:10pm, was stopped from entering the hall by protesters comprising of some youth and students who accused him of defending corrupt politicians, calling him unprintable names. The incident interrupted the keynote lecture being delievered by Prof Popoola for more than 20 minutes.
The protesters berated Chief Ozekhome for defending personalities including Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose, former First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan, Senate President Bukola Saraki among others, who they labeled as corrupt, contrary to the ideals for which the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi stood for.
To them, the presence of the learned Silk was derogatory to Fawehinmi’s memory.
It took the intervention of Falana, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Ikeja Chairman Mr Adeshina Ogunlana and Mr Mohammed Fawehinmi to bring the situation under control.
Mohammed calmed the protesting youths by recalling that his late father did not believe in violence.
He said Fawehinmi would not have approved what they did because Ozekhome was at the event for a purpose.
“This gathering is a democratic gathering and it is a gathering in which security should not restrict anybody”, he said, adding that he was about nine years old when Ozekhome was working as a counsel in his late father’s chamber.
Ozekhome, who later addressed the gathering, told them that he was very close to Fawehinmi and that together they formulated and started the publication, “Nigerian weekly Law Report”.
He said Gani did not believe in oppression, repression and tyranny in whatever form, adding, :”Gani fought across the country handling many cases including controversial ones.”
He recalled that when, in 1983, the NBA said lawyers should not defend alleged corrupt politicians under the administration of General Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon when they were fighting corruption, “Gani said No; these people are entitled to their rights.
“By Section 36 of the Constitution, every person’s innocence is presumed; I was with Gani when we were defending the so-called corrupt politicians,” among who he said was Folorunsho Kila.
His address was, however, punctured by the protesters who shouted “lies, lies, lies’’ even as the senior advocate told the protesters that he cannot be intimidated and called them hired protersters.
Afterwards, Falana clarified Ozekhome’s statement on Gani, which he said should not be misunderstood to mean that Gani was a defender of corruption.
Falana said Gani took on some cases to expose corruption and corrupt politicians. “So that we don’t go away with the very misleading impression that Gani was a defender of corrupt people. No! And I am going to correct this. For those that Gani defended, Gani never went to any court; he never filed stay of proceedings to frustrate the system as it is the culture now.
“Gani never defended anybody tried by the EFCC or the ICPC. He called a few of us and said, ‘If we cannot help to kill corruption in Nigeria, we must never frustrate the little attempt being made by Nuhu Ribadu and others fighting corruption in Nigeria’ and that was Gani for you”, Falana said.
According to the Silk, but for Gani, there would have been too much impunity in the country.
He said: “The country operates a class law. If a poor man is killed, they call it murder but if a rich man is killed, they call it assassination”.
“If we are celebrating Gani, we must be able to stand for what he stood for, which is good governance. If we are talking about restructuring, we should not be recycling same people that brought us to the level we are today.”
The erudite lawyer said political restructuring is not possible without first getting economic restructuring in order to liberate the people.
Earlier, Prof. Popoola, in his paper titled, “ Re-Inventing the Nigerian State: Imperatives, Prospects and Challenges of Federalism, Restructuring and Good Governance” agreed with Falana that the country cannot have meaningful restructuring without first attaining economic restructuring.
He observed that beyond the security question, the corporate existence of the Nigerian state, is under threat from various sources.
He noted that there “is no country in the world today, which is not torn by civil war, yet whose basis of corporate existence (has been) subjected to such vociferous and persistent attackss’ by various sections of its citizenry, as that of Nigeria.
According to him, some of the issues that have been raised go to the historical basis of the nation’s existence as a country.
“In addressing these issues, it is imperative that we come to terms with the substance of the historical processes which had produced our ethnic groups and the Nigerian polity as well as reflect on the mosaic nature of the ethnic and cultural geography of the county”, he advised.
He remarked that Nigeria and other African countries were programmed to fail by the colonial masters right from the beginning, with distorted and disarticulated structures and a marginal location and role in the global order.
Pointing out that the political environment at independence was “a set up” , the learned professor of international law explained that this was why at independence, the state inherited was “non-hegemonic and lacked the capacity to create the sort of environment that would have allowed public policy to be rational, sustainable and effective.
“Besides, Africa did not inherit an environment that was conductive to democracy growth, and development.
“The custodian of state power seemed also set up to fail. They lacked economic power, their political power was fragile, and they were opportunistic and incapable of competing with powerful and entrenched profit and hegemony seeking transactional corporations.
“The few that opted for progressive policies were humiliated, frustrated or eliminated. The result was that African policy makers and leaders moved, as it were from one error to the other. As they were able to benefit from the existing dire conditions, they resisted all calls for change”, he stated.
Nevertheles, he noted that Nigeria still has a brilliant destiny. “In the historical evolution of nations, there are always dark and frosty moments when it might be difficult to see beyond the present challenges Nigeria, for now, may be a country of contradictions, “embodying plenty of painful realities and beautiful dreams”.
He added, “freedom for the people, that is what Gani stood for and pursued with dogged determination in his life time. The struggle must not be allowed to die even as we continue to celebrate this enigma of our time”, he emphasised.
