Gani Fawehinmi: Not yet a postscript

The title is taken from an earlier writing by Dr. Olatunji Dare in his opinion article on Chief Gani Fawehinmi (herein called Gani). He titled the article ‘Gani: A Postscript’. This suggests a tendency to end the debate and discussion about the enigma of Gani with his burial. This explains why many so-called notable Nigerians were falling over themselves to participate in the orgy of accolade for the man before he was buried. Gani is not just another important personality that will be celebrated for just few days and then forgotten. Gani represented an idea of change, the exploration of which is vital for the future of the millions Nigerians and Africans he represented and defended during his lifetime. To the Nigerian ruling class, their apologists and followers who represented what Gani fiercely fought against, his burial was a big relief. To the fake political heirs to Gani, debate must end with a call for ‘masses to fight for their rights’. To his millions of fans and supporters, who constitute the poor working masses of Nigeria and Africa, Gani was a revolutionary working class tribune. For this reason the exploration of his life is vital for the working class activists and youth seeking to defeat capitalism, especially in this era of neoliberal madness and utter failure of Nigeria’s and indeed Africa’s backward ruling classes.

That the late Gani was enigmatic was confirmed by the torrent of tribute to his memory by millions of Nigerians. Despite the attempt of some of the media to concentrate on the 'eminent personalities' view (a term Gani himself ridiculed openly) of Gani, the reality is that it was the poor, the working people, students and youth who actually gave the honour to Gani. One thing is significant in Gani's life, which could only be found in another enigmatic personality, Fela Anikulapo Kuti: he stood against all corrupt and anti-poor governments from the beginning to the end. As Fela had hitherto sung, it was 'no agreement today, no agreement tomorrow'. For young people looking for role model and to develop a genuine and resolved mind for social change, this aspect of Gani's life is a shinning example. Young people, especially our students, should know that it is not how decently dubious you are or your commitment to the current iniquitous capitalist system that can earn you eternal honour, but commitment to the common cause for an egalitarian society where public resources will be used for common good.

It is worth stating that Gani did not venture into the human rights and pro-democracy struggle as a rich man. In fact, he started the human rights struggle far before human rights activism became a thriving industry. It was only the contradiction of the unjust capitalist arrangement that through his profession, produced a capitalist out of Gani. It is apposite to say that he would have altogether become a richer man, if he had not ventured into the life-risking human rights and pro-democracy struggles. Exceptionally, rather than being carried away by the wealth, Gani was able to resolve the contradiction to a certain extent by aligning with the poor masses in their struggles for better living. He risked his life and wealth to fight against privatisation, commercialisation (including law education commercialisation), deregulation, fuel price hikes, and low wages (even for the judges) ect. One must ask how many human right entrepreneurs would be ready to sacrifice subventions and grants (from foreign donors and governments) to these kinds of struggles not to mention the building of a political movement against capitalism?

However, it is worth stating that Gani's relevance is not only in his commitment, doggedness and sacrifice. We are witnesses to several self-acclaimed anti-military, pro-June 12 fighters, who are as anti-poor as the military rulers they falsely claimed to have resisted. The way Gani stood out was neither through his expansive and unique philanthropy. Instead, what placed Gani above his contemporaries, juniors and seniors, is his working class approach which he peaked with his involvement in the direct anti-capitalist political struggle for change. However, all attempt to hide this aspect of Gani's contribution. It is this working class character he brought to all these endeavours coupled with his political activism that will live for evermore.

As a lawyer, Gani was a contradiction. Law, as Karl Marx defined it is an instrument for the sanctification of robbery of the poor by the rich in a capitalist society. Therefore, no matter the seeming progressive character of law, it is limited in challenging the status quo. Gani, especially during public interest cases, was unable to use law to change the capitalist status quo, but was able to use law and the legal system to expose the contradictions within our backward neocolonial capitalist state: The contradiction between the profit-oriented system and its so-called avowed social and jurisprudential transparency. Until he breathed his last, he was clearly demonstrating the failure of the ruling class, which while claiming to be committed to rule of law continue to rape the fundamental aspect of the Nigerian constitution: Chapter two, which guarantees free and quality education at all levels, free medical services, national minimum living wage, old age and disabled social security, living pension (not extortive contributory pension), and nationalisation of the economy.

Gani’s exploration of the contradictory facade of the law in an unequal society, pitched him against the legal establishment and many of his colleagues, who see the law as a means of sustaining the system. This explains his battle with the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), not only over the Buhari quasi-judicial military tribunal but also during the Olisa Agbakoba-led NBA era when he combated the NBA’s uncritical romance with the Bench. On the former issue, it is imperative to comment on the one-sided critique of Gani by many pundits. For instance, Olakunle Abimbola writing in The Nation newspaper, had suggested that Gani’s acceptance to appear before Buhari’s tribunal, when NBA called for a boycott, gave the regime a lease of life, and further justified future military regimes. This argument is bizarre, as it deliberately ignored Gani’s arguments and previous history of the NBA. It should be noted that while Gani appeared before the tribunal, he played an active role in combating the Buhari regime’s autocratic laws against students, workers and journalists. He defended and supported students and workers during the struggles against the regime’s anti-poor policies. This is a far cry from the character and position of the NBA. Gani has maintained correctly, that the NBA leadership was hypocritical on its boycott position. The same NBA was mute when students and workers were attacked by previous regimes; the same NBA did not organise any boycott against the first election rigging, the first coup or the civil war. In addition to this, many NBA members did not protest against subsequent military regimes’ military tribunals, repressive actions and economic policies.

NBA’s boycott call may be right but neither consistent nor principled. Criticising NBA is not a justification for Gani’s decision. For a working class activist, opposition to the military and repressive regimes must be sacrosanct, but participation in the activities organised under the military regime is tactical. For instance, it would have been wrong not to appear before Sani Abacha’s military tribunal on Ken Saro Wiwa’s trial, because abstention initially would have easily justified Abacha’s thirst for blood. But the two are not mutually exclusive; a working class fighter must know that any participation in activities under a military regime must be linked with the struggle to topple such a regime. Gani stood against military rule and participated actively in struggle to end it. It would have however been more meaningful if Gani had mobilised the students, workers, etc to demand for an open tribunal for not just civilian politicians but also military officials since 1966. This would have de-mystified the Buhari regime itself, and further undermined its basis of existence. On the other hand, the NBA’s rejection was not based on its long-term opposition to the military regime, as it also did not mobilise people against past repressive regimes. Is today’s NBA better off?

Gani’s philanthropic exploit was also exceptional. While a philanthropist believes that through charity, wealth can be given to the poor while the system of inequality continues to produce a vicious cycle of poverty, Gani’s practice of philanthropy was oriented towards empowering the poor so that they could fight the system that made them poor. Gani’s philanthropy was meant to undermine the basis for philanthropy itself. This explains why Gani’s material contributions to people’s lives were more pronounced in pro bono legal services, especially for activists in the workers’ and student movement; education sponsorships and donations of books and materials to press houses, student organisations, civil society groups and professional groups. He even published books on national issues like such as fuel deregulation. In many ways his pioneering law report was also a philanthropic gesture. He was not just a philanthropist but a radical humanist philanthropist.

Aside from the earlier point that Gani started his activism far before ‘human rightism’ became an enterprise; Gani's definition of activism was different. Not only was he not reported to have secured financial aid from foreign donors (many of which are attached to intelligence agencies, multinational agencies and corporations etc., all of whom are contributing to the suffering of the working people in both advanced and backward countries) but, Gani's human right activism was directed at the contradiction between capitalist rule (both military and civilian) and people’s interests. He stood out due to his expansive definition of human rights activism that included opposition to neoliberal capitalist policies of privatisation, commercialisation, and deregulation, issues which most human right elements can hardly openly oppose as a result of their commitment to their local and foreign donors, who benefit from these policies.

Gani's approach to the defence of people’s rights during both the military and civilian regimes was political. He not only stood in the courts to defend students, workers and their organisations, he would go to the streets along with them to defend their democratic rights. Even during the military regime when the central demands were the ousting of the military and validation of June 12 mandate, Gani along with socialist and young activists in the National Conscience Party (NCP) combated the anti-poor, pro-imperialist and capitalist economic policies. This is significant, as many of the pro-June 12 elements were not fundamentally opposed to military rule, as events since the arrival of civilian rule have exposed.

Gani’s political method clearly stood out, avoiding the treachery of bourgeois opposition during and after the military rule. Socialists had maintained that the bourgeois anti-military oppositionists were not reliable, and that there was a need to build a genuine working class political platform that would transcend the demand for ousting of the military and validation of the June 12 mandate. Additionally it would raise socio-economic demands vis-à-vis public ownership of the mainstay of the economy (oil and gas, minerals, power and energy, steel, etc) under the democratic control of the working and poor people through their elected representatives. To concretise this, socialists raised the need to build such a platform from the grassroots, with the formation of local struggles and defence committees around workplaces that would then be linked up to the national level as a way of mobilising a comprehensive struggle against capitalism and imperialism, that led to the military rule in the first place. With such an arrangement, it would not have been possible for the bourgeois opposition to hijack the struggle and make a rotten agreement with the military ruling class under the guise of engendering transition. Gani formed the NCP during the time when the Abacha government outlawed alternative political platforms; when many so-called pro-democracy elements and groups withdrew back to their shells, ran away from the country, grumbled in their bedrooms or sold their birthright to the regime.

It will not be adequate not to explore Gani’s political activism in the civilian experiment. It has been severally alleged that Gani’s ‘one-man-ism’ led to his failure politically. This view was expressed, among others, by Mr. Sam Omatseye (editorial board chairman of The Nation newspaper) in his evaluation of Gani’s life. Aside from other ludicrous allegations that Gani believed in dictatorship, Omatseye had posited that Gani’s lack of collective action led to the failure of his political career. This is ridiculous. In the first instance, flowing from the previous analysis, it was not Gani that failed politically but those shameless politicians of today, including the so-called opposition, who struck a rotten alliance with the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime in order for them to attain political relevance. It is those journalists and politicians who kept quiet when the right of the poor people to form a political party in a civilian regime was curtailed by the Olusegun Obasanjo regime in alliance with the so-called opposition. It is those who allied with the Obasanjo regime in 2003 for their own political survival that failed; those that claim to be the opposition but continue to retrench tens of thousands of workers, victimise labour and student leaders, privatise and commercialise. Indeed, Gani had succeeded politically as opposed to the cowards that refused to even murmur their grudges.

Gani’s sustenance of the NCP showed his contempt for the Nigeria’s bourgeois opposition parties, which were (and are still) implementing anti-poor policies especially in the southwest, where over 50,000 workers were retrenched by the Alliance for Democracy (AD) government. It was the refusal of Gani to ally with political opportunists that earned him the opprobrium of the self-acclaimed progressive politicians. But to millions of poor and working class people, Gani’s political integrity and formation of a pro-poor political party is legendary. The Gani-led NCP was a huge success going by the then prevailing conditions. Although the NCP of today has lost all its genuine working class, radical political outlook as a result of the hijack of the party leadership by the rightwing elements within the party, the party’s role during Gani’s leadership was significant for the working and poor people, especially the activists looking for change from this rotten, capitalist system. It is on this note that the NCP was denied early registration by the ruling central government of Obasanjo, in alliance with the opposition party and a section of the judiciary, but miraculously the party sprang up despite not winning virtually anywhere. The party was officially allowed to exist in late 2002 and the struggle to democratise the electoral space and right of contest was won early 2003. Against these odds and despite widespread rigging and massive monetary inducement of the electoral process by the major capitalist parties, NCP made significant gains.

In Lagos State, despite financial constraints, where about N8 million (generally mobilised from members only) that were expended on the governorship and senatorial elections, as a result the party received over 150,000 votes and over 77,000 votes for governorship and (Lagos West) senatorial candidates respectively. The senatorial candidate for Lagos West, Lanre Arogundade a socialist, former student leader and unionist ran an anti-capitalist, socialist campaign. He committed to collecting a worker’s wage and donating of the rest of his salary to communities and the working class and youth movement. He would have won if the ruling party in the state would not have been rigged the election. His votes (like others) were big blow to the nefarious propaganda that you need to join corrupt capitalist political arrangement before you can gain mass support. Furthermore, Gani, despite the aforementioned obstacles, came fifth in the presidential election. Compare this to the political collaboration of the capitalist parties. In Lagos State, according to a newspaper report, the ruling party, seeing the enormous progress parties like the NCP were making, mobilised over N400 million overnight from the 20 local governments they controlled, not to print posters but to induce voters. Is this a sign of political success? It should also be recalled that against all sectional and ethnic politics being played, Gani stood for the alliance of the poor people nationally. Indeed, when Gani came to Osun State, precisely Ile-Ife in 2003 during his campaign he got his loudest ovation from the Hausa community.

It is on note that while other parties, claiming to be democratic imposed the views of the leaders on the membership, and in fact attacked the opposition when they are power, Gani-led NCP allowed open critique of the party policies and programmes, which allowed socialists and other left forces to recruit members. For instance, socialists in NCP had maintained that while NCP was not yet a mass working class party, its care programme must be linked with the ultimate struggle to change the capitalist socio-economic outlook of the country, as the programme, as beautiful as it was, could not be fully implemented without a revolutionary programme of public ownership of the economy. Politically, socialists argued that the party had to be a fighting party of the masses, leading protests against attacks on economic and democratic rights of workers, students, youth, and the unemployed, as it was doing during the military regime. With this, the party would become the official party of the working people. This critique helped NCP to develop and recruit the best of progressive minds.

On the other hand, the ruling parties were busy attacking workers and the poor. Gani was himself a victim. For instance, when he questioned Bola Tinubu’s (then Lagos State governor) academic credential in court, he was not only vilified, but thugs were mobilised to attack him. In fact, some of those claiming to come from his human right constituency openly chastised him. For instance, one of those now posing to be his heir apparent was not only a lawyer to Tinubu, but openly called Gani senile. Ironically, this same person, who sought for gubernatorial ticket under Alliance for Democracy (AD), Tinubu’s party, is not only a central leader of NCP today, but one of the chief organisers of Gani’s burial. Also, in Osun State in 2002, Gani, along with several thousands others were tear-gassed by the police mobilised by the Bisi Akande government to quell a mass rally organised to resist retrenchment and high-handedness. Bisi Akande is now the national leader of one of the major bourgeois opposition parties, Action Congress (AC).

Gani Fawehinmi as a human being made mistakes – ‘show me who never makes a mistake and I will show you a fool’ – but such were products of circumstances and lack of rounded out socialist understanding of the capitalist system. For instance, his acceptance of Buhari as a presidential candidate in 2007 was flawed, but that in it self was due to the absence of a viable political alternative. While not justifying Gani’s mistake, in reality, if there had been a genuine party of the working people, even to the level of pre-2003 and the NCP running with a person like Adams Oshiomhole, a labour leader contesting under such party as a presidential candidate, Gani might not have made such decision. Also, Gani’s relinquishment of party leadership to the rightwing elements, who were either in bourgeois parties or played no major role in the party’s struggles, led to the collapse of the party politically and ideological, with the party receiving only 580 votes in the 2007 governorship election as opposed to over 150,000 it received in 2003. Fortunately, Gani was able to recognise that the NCP he built had veered off track politically and ideologically. In late 2007, he granted an interview with Vanguard newspaper where he openly admitted that the party had been bastardised by the rightwing leadership with himself not knowing what the party stood for. In the same year, in a symposium organised by the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) and United Action for Democracy (UAD), he openly reiterated the same point, going further to support the need for a socialist (working class) party, canvassed by Dr Dipo Fashina. His promise to join and support such a party did not materialise as the party was yet to be formed before his demise. Gani sought to build a sane, modern capitalist society that would serve the poor, but his endeavours met with the backwardness of the neocolonial capitalist ruling class, which drew him in the anti-capitalist socialist direction.

The best honour genuine working class and pro-democracy activists and youth can give to the memory of Gani is to hasten his struggle for the toppling of the anti-poor, neo-liberal capitalist arrangement through a socialist revolution by building a genuine mass working people’s political party. There is need for a summit of genuine left-wing and pro-labour forces on building this political movement. While Gani called for labour (working masses) taking over the reign of governance, the Labour Party that should serve as a pole of attraction to millions of workers and youth has been denied mass participation by the right wing leadership of the party, who want to use it as a bargaining tool in 2011. It is not enough to ask the masses to fight for their rights; we must provide the political platform for them to do so. While Gani’s fought all his life to ensure the sustenance of platforms of resistance, the students’ national platform has been destroyed; radical workers’ movement has been crippled by the pro-bourgeois leadership, while working people have been denied an independent political voice. However, as the ruling class in Nigeria continue to attack workers, students, the poor and the youth; destroy education and deregulate the economy, the need to build on Gani’s heroic and revolutionary zeal by the working and poor people will gain echo, which will fire the movement to the overthrow of capitalism and enthronement of a just socialist society. This will be the real celebration of Gani Fawehinmi, the revolutionary tribune.

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* Kola Ibrahim is a student activist from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.