Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, the 13th governor of Lagos State, unveils a worthy bust and a public park dedicated to the former President of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), late Alao Aka-Bashorun. Alao Aka-Bashorun was the thirteenth elected President of NBA from year 1987 to 1989. He died in 2005. When his remains was laid to rest in 2005, yours sincerely wrote in tribute to my mentor and senior comrade, that “If there should be a worthy epitaph that captures inestimable national value additions of the late legendary activist progressive lawyer it should read: A Patriot to the core”.


Patriotism in Nigeria was then (and is certainly still) out of fashion. No thanks to the elitist slide back to regionalism, parochialism, corruption, narrow-mindedness, and shameless chauvinism. Few endangered species called patriots fully appreciated the significance of Aka’s patriotism and how Nigeria then just lost a voice after the death of the great patriot Dr Bala Usman of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, also a comrade of Aka-Bashorun’s.

Many thanks to the government and people of Lagos state for the deserved posthumous dedication in honour of an African patriot, a revolutionary and a radical lawyer. In him was a great human capital. Late Alao Aka-Bashorun was a law graduate from the prestigious London School of Economics where he did his LL.B Programme in 1957 with school mates like legal luminary and elder statesman, Professor Ben Nwabueze (SAN).


Alao Aka-Bashorun was born on December 5, 1930 to a Lagos Island family. The post humous honour to the late NBA President and radical progressive lawyer is coming up after the death and burial of Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected non-racial President of South Africa. Remembering Aka today invokes among others a nostalgia of his impeccable pan African credentials that compare favourably with Madiba’s in terms of selflessness, courage, perseverance and passion for liberty, fairness and justice. Indeed Nigeria once produced many Mandelas that included Aka-Bashorun.

As an undergraduate he was an activist and once elected the President of the West African Students Union (WASU) in 1957. He was on the barricade together with other patriotic first generation Nigerian students in the 1960s denouncing Anglo-Nigeria defence pact in the knowledge that the promise of independence was not neo-colonialism. He was also a union organiser at the then United African Company (UAC) headquarters in Lagos where he worked. With inspirations from great pan African leaders like Dr Kwame Nkrumah the President of Ghana, Dr Sekou Toure of Guinea and Dr. Felix Mourne of Cameroon and other progressive nationalist politicians Aka for decades engaged in full time revolutionary activities. An organizational man, he had to his credit many progressive pan African organizations whose objectives included fighting for equality and justice to all.


He was one of the activists that canvassed for the formation of Nigeria Labour Congress in 1978. Aka-Bashorun successfully organized the first anti-apartheid meeting in the United Kingdom in 1960. He was an unofficial Senior Advocate of Nigeria dating back to colonial era. Paradoxically he was not so honoured with official SAN by the law bureaucracy before his death. In fact, the great irony is that those so generously privileged as official advocates of Nigeria are now in the habit of questioning the existence of Nigeria which the late Aka cherished until his death. Aka-Bashorun raised the banner of democracy, rule of law and internationalism to the end. His remarkable reinvention of the hitherto moribund Bar, as the President of NBA, during the dark days of military dictatorship only increased the noise level of his strident advocacy for Nigeria.
To protest the incessant disobedience of court orders by IBB military junta Aka organized the first national boycott of courts in 1988. He opposed in particular the notorious Decree 2 and other obnoxious laws. Notwithstanding his radicalism, both the activists of left and right saw him as a consensus builder.

Aka-Bashorun legal Chambers at Jebba West in Lagos was the Nigeria’s equivalent of legendary Mandela-Oliver legal office at Fox Street Johannesburg, which opened doors to justice and fairness for the multitude of the oppressed and under privileged. Aka Bashorun was a meticulous lawyer who shared traditions with famous progressive lawyers who put law at the service of the oppressed such as South Africa’s late Yusuf Dadoo, Alfred Nzo, Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. Aka Chambers was also a remarkable platform for national integration. Not few lawyers have passed through the chambers that included Bob Manuel, Femi Falana, Tony Akika, among others.


Aka-Bashorun will ever be remembered for his comradeship and generosity. Socialism was not for him a slogan of convenience or passing fad to seek relevance and prominence but a means for practical deeds to lift those lagging behind in the rat race of life under capitalism. Yours truly, late Dr Bala Muhammed and Chom Bagu Deme were direct beneficiaries of his generosity and solidarity. He single-handedly handed our case against Ango Abdullahi inspired repressive mass expulsion of 1981 in ABU Zaria. My indebtedness even borders on romanticism precisely because I own my first air travel to him in the 1980s.


A remarkable elegant and successive advocate, Aka-Bashorun was conscious of the limitations of law as tool for transformation. He told us that we could only get judgement and not necessarily justice in the court during our battle against expulsion. He accordingly advised that we return back to school even if it entailed starting afresh adding that nothing was too much (including time) in search for knowledge. Today we dedicate our multiple degrees and certificates own heap to Aka-Bashorun’s worthy counselling. Aka’s well having and well giving was done in obscurity as part of his modesty. May his soul rest in peace.

fckmn24seg: Good work, who will show us the pry and secondary schools where pupils and student seat on the floor to receive lectures Long live APC






Front page Joor

E.M.Ezzy:
maybe you should show us,cos i went to school in lagos and dont remember being sat on th floor to take lectures.

fckmn24seg:
here you go
http://www.punchng.com/news/more-lagos-schools-where-pupils-sit-on-bare-floors-unearthed/
be more informed, listen to news, cheers

fckmn24seg:

here you go

http://www.punchng.com/news/more-lagos-schools-where-pupils-sit-on-bare-floors-unearthed/

be more informed, listen to news, cheers