Gani was a human devil - Brother

By Abiodun Awolaja - 15.09.2009

THE late Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s elder brother, Justice Rasheed Fawehinmi (rtd), has said that the late legal icon, inherited his activist spirit from his grandfather, the late Lisa Alujannu of Ondo Kingdom, who died in 1908.

Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune in his bedroom at his Laje, Ondo residence on Friday, the elder Fawehinmi said his brother was a revolutionary spirit. “Gani, if you look at him critically, was a human devil, an imp. He inherited his fiery, temparament from our grandfather, Lisa Alujannu who, during his lifetime, was so powerful that he even usurped the power of the Osemawe,” he said.

“Lisa Alujannu, noted for doing extraordinary things, once buried a pregnant woman alive in the height of his power. He was a no-nonsense chief who brooked no opposition. You would not call that kind of man a gentle person,” he said.

The elder Fawehinmi, who said he spent 32 years at the bar, said that anyone interested in the Gani mystique should read his book Makers of Ode Ondo, published in 1992, a copy of which he gave to the Nigerian Tribune.

On the reactions of Nigerians to Gani’s death, the eminent jurist said that “Nigerians, by their reactions, have shown that they are mostly insincere.

Most of the reactions to Gani’s death are like the ostritch burying its head in the sand. The police, too, reacted just because the generality of the people were reacting. They were the people pushing Gani to prison whose orders are they obeying now in sympathising?” he asked.

The 82-year-old further said that the reaction of the publisher of the Tribune titles, Resolution Oluwole Awolowo, to Gani’s death contained incontrovertible truth. “He said Nigerians are liars. That is, those people who are now reacting are liars. He said the truth.”

He said he had read General Ibrahim Babangida’s tribute to Gani and he approved it “from the bottom of my heart.”

“He said Gani was consistent. He was like a man who goes to a Catholic priest to confess: Let me say something about Gani before he is buried. That was how I read his reaction,” he added.

Fawehinmi also said the Nigerian nation would never be free from corruption because of ethnic politics and lack of concrete reform. “I cannot envisage Nigeria’s freedom from corruption. The situation is very, very hopeless. And I cannot envisage the freedom of the politicians from ethnicity. All you do will be inconsequential when you don’t reform the mind. It is the mind that has to be reformed,” he said, adding that there was no solution in sight for the country. “Many of the politicians in the country now will be off if elections are not rigged.”

anyone interested in the Gani mystique should read his book Makers of Ode Ondo, published in 1992

I'll be on the lookout.

Pls I need to get that book by Justice fawehinmi makers of ode Ondo. How do I get it?