29th November, 2010
Ahead of the International Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December 2010, the late legal luminary and human rights and anti-corruption activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, (SAN), has won the 2010 Civil Society Anti-Corruption Defender Award posthumously.
His wife, Mrs. Ganiyat Fawehinmi, will receive the Award on behalf of Chief Fawehinmi’s family at the event on Thursday, 9 December this year in Lagos State.
While the Minister for Information, Professor Dora Akunyili, is expected to chair the event, other guests expected at the event include: Mr. Berend Jan Ronhaar, the Netherlands Ambassador to Nigeria; Mr. Bob Dewar, British High Commissioner to Nigeria; Ms. Linda Nwoke, the BBC World Service Trust Country Director; Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) and Justice Bunmi Oyewole.
Former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu won the award last year.
A joint statement signed by the Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism; Socio-Economic Rights & Accountability Project (SERAP); Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC); Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), and Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), which made up the award jury, said Fawehinmi deserved the award for his “consistent and unparalleled commitment to the cause of justice, transparency, accountability and development of the country.â€
The statement signed on behalf of the groups by SERAP Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, said that, “Chief Fawehinmi was chosen for the 2010 Civil Society Anti-Corruption Defender Award for his demonstrably strong leadership, scholarship, integrity and honesty in both the practice of his legal profession and the cause of humanity.
“No Nigerian, living or dead, suffered the level of persecution he faced. He was detained in police custody or prison no fewer than 36 times.
“He was regularly in and out of jail for the cause of democracy, transparency, accountability and the rule of law. He was physically assaulted in the hallowed precincts of the courts and on the streets; his home and law office was sprayed with bullets and bombed.â€
“But despite the risks to his safety and security, he never compromised the ideals, principles and the commitments that made him the Senior Advocate of the Masses, SAM, a title given to him by students of the Obafemi Awolowo University.â€
“As a lawyer, Chief Fawehinmi saw law as an instrument against injustice, tyranny and bad government, fighting injustice wherever and whenever it manifested itself. He provided free legal representation to countless victims of human rights violations. He represented Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni activists in court. He handled about five thousand, seven hundred (5,700) briefs,†the groups added.
The groups also said that, the late Gani’s “unbelievable brilliance as a lawyer, pertinacity and courage as a human rights defender and humanness as a fighter against poverty distinguished him as the most celebrated anti-corruption defender of his generation†.
As a result of his human rights and anti-corruption work, the late Fawehinmi was arrested, detained, charged to court several times.
His international passport was seized on many occasions. He was deported from one part of the country to another to prevent him from being listened to by Nigerians.
Some of his books which the Federal Military Government did not like were confiscated. His Chambers at Anthony Village, Lagos State, was attacked and invaded by persons suspected to be government security men.
On 26 August, 1995 Gani was arrested by the Federal Government Security agents of Abacha’s regime at the Port-Harcourt Airport on his arrival by air from Lagos and immediately deported back to Lagos through the same plane that brought him from Lagos to Port-Harcourt.
The leader of the security men who arrested Gani at the Airport said to him: “we have orders not to allow you to enter Port-Harcourt and to put you on the same plane that brought you from Lagos.â€
—Eromosele Ebhomele
