As a lawyer with interest in rights protection, Samuel Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa is one of the few remaining rights activists in Nigeria after the demise of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, writes Ojo M. Maduekwe

Mr. Samuel Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa is a lawyer best known for championing the rights of the masses. When one considers the manner in which he has fearlessly taken on the Lagos State Government on issues that many of his peers have shied away from, it may not be wrong to tag him: “The Last Rights Activist”, after the late Gani Fawehinmi.
His ambition as the defender of the rights of the masses was birthed under the tutelage of the law firm of Fawehinmi, where he began his professional career as a lawyer. For those who still remember Fawehinmi, he was as much known as the “Senior Advocate of the Masses”.

Adegboruwa, like his mentor Fawehinmi, has continued on the path of struggle for the emancipation of the masses. A Lagos-based lawyer, he has on several occasions taken the state government to court, challenging some of the government’s policies considered anti-people. Some he has won while others remain pending.

There is a striking comparison between him and Fawehinmi. Most people can remember how the late Fawehinmi challenged one of the national leaders of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and a former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, during his stay in office.
Fawehinmi had taken Tinubu to court over the allegation that the latter had forged his certificate and that this happened months into the first tenure of Tinubu showed how fearless Fawehinmi was.

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo while writing about Fawehinmi in his controversial autobiography – My Watch – made mention of this: “Gani was to me a fearless, genuine politico-social critic, who drew no distinction between friends and associates or on ethnicity, geography or religion. He believed in what he did and did what he believed.”

It is in the same vigour that Adegboruwa has continued the fight to protect the masses. Without fear, he has been a courageous and unbiased critic of the Lagos State government. Some of the celebrated legal cases he has fought and won for the masses include “Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa v. Attorney General of the Federation & 3 others” which borders on the Ikoyi-Lekki link bridge and recently the case of NCP v Lagos State Govt.

Other cases that are public oriented, pending before the courts are: “Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa v. Lekki Concession Company and 4 others” which borders on the illegal toll-gate fee collection by the Lagos State Government; “Adegboruwa v. NCC & others”, which borders on inefficient services and the exploitative pricing of telecoms service operators in Nigeria.

And then there’s “Adegboruwa v. Lagos State Government & others” which bordering on Lagos State House of Assembly’s moves to excise, remove and privatise the probate registry of the High Court of Lagos State.

In addition is “Adegboruwa v. Lagos State Government & others” which over the arrest, detention and prosecution of individuals during the monthly sanitation exercise which the federal high court, on Monday, 16 March 2015 in a considered judgment declared unconstitutional.

Adegboruwa has been an activist and rights crusader for most part of his life. He was the Public Relations Officer of the Student’s Union of Obafemi Awolowo University, and later President of the same union.

He was a member of the Senate of the National Association of Nigerian Students and member of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights; Civil Liberties Organization; Campaign for Democracy; president, GSM Subscribers and other Phone users Association of Nigeria and founder of Law and Justice Forum and Millennium Legal Support Services.

According to some of the staff and lawyers under his tutelage such as Mrs. Benedicta Lawrence; Mrs. Grace Omotosho; Mr. David Fadile; Mr. Gbenga Awoseye, and Mr. Kingsley Ezenwa Izimah, Adegboruwa has a stake in the way and manner Lagos State and Nigeria are governed, having suffered and sacrificed for the enthronement of democratic rule in Nigeria.

During the course of his campaign to enthrone the rights of the masses both in Lagos and across several states in Nigeria, he has been arrested, detained and prosecuted. Even when his opponents thought that arrests and detentions could slow him down, Adegboruwa has remained undaunted.

For instance, he has been arrested and detained in various police stations in Enugu and Lagos during the struggle for the actualisation of the June, 12 1993 presidential election, at the Directorate of Military Intelligence for more than six months. Lately, on June 30, 2014, he was on his way for a Television Interview when he was arrested.

It was this arrest, in respect of the monthly Saturday sanitation that inspired him to take the State government to court, in the case “Adegboruwa v. Lagos State Government & others” which the federal high court has declared illegal.

Born on March 21, 1965 in Ondo State, Adegboruwa is also a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God. He has been listed several times in Nigeria’s ‘Who is Who’ and remains a great advocate on how the masses are governed across the levels of government.
He is married to Mrs. Oreka, equally a legal practitioner and an assistant pastor in the Redeemed Church, to which they both have five children.

Please how do I reach this lawyer asap!!!!

He attends redeem Christian church at lekki , Admiralty road.