GANI FAWEHINMI, A HUGE VOID IN THIS TIME OF GREAT TRIBULATION.

Icheoku says if any black robed and white wigged man or woman ever walked the field of law in Nigeria,  Gani Fawehinmi was that man and literally the only man to have truly done so; matter of factly speaking. He walked tall, fearlessly and courageously; and where angels feared to tread, he thudded. He was never coy nor timid about the preeminent place of the law in society and always fought to ensure it. He confronted whatever needed to be confronted legally; he magisterially rose up on each and every occasion in defense of the law and people. As a result, authorities usually thought twice, knowing that Gani will be challenging their illegalities in court and doggedly too, before they trample on the constitution, the law and the  rights of the citizenry. 

But regrettably, happenstances of the past few months in Nigeria has rekindled the memory of this indefatigable legal luminary of great repute. Icheoku mourns his loss all over again as a man whom Nigeria misses at this great hour of great need, of a fearless warrior to face-down the morphing dictatorship that is President Muhammadu Buhari. Imagine an elected president, in a democracy, usurping the powers of court and disparaging the very rule of law which made his presidency possible in the first place; and lawyers in Nigeria are just keeping mum, pretending that all is well while the very foundation upon which their trade is built is being eroded and corroded in this very adverse manner. As far as many of them are concerned, provided the whole applecart is not upturned and as long as they still can eke out a living, hustling; President Muhammadu Buhari can do whatever he wants unchallenged with two Nigerian citizens whose right to fair hearing have been unduly infringed by the government. 

Various courts of competent jurisdiction heard citizens Sambo Dasuki and Nnamdi Kanu's bail applications, considered them and ruled. They granted them bail, with one, unconditionally; but President Muhammadu Buhari is saying that they do not deserve bail and as a result is still holding them illegally and in breach of the rule of law. Icheoku says if this two citizens are flight risk as President Muhammadu Buhari would shamelessly want the bewildered world to believe, why did his prosecutorial team not adduce such evidence while the issue of bail was being argued and persuade the court not to grant them bail or condition them on impossible or more stringent and hard to perfect obligations? Why would the government's prosecutorial team wait until the court have weighted their bail applications and determined their alleged offenses bailable and accordingly granted them bail, before President Muhammadu Buhari will then countermand the courts and refuse to comply with valid orders of courts and in a democracy? 

Icheoku laments that the Nigeria Bar Association, having not risen up as a pressure group in defense of the law and constitutional rights of Nigerian citizens, have lost its salt and should therefore consider revoking its charter of existence.  Their present indifference to the brash bashing of the law by President Muhammadu Buhari, especially its President Alegeh, is simply inexplicable.  Worse still, Vice President Yemi Osibanjo is a lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and you wonder doesn't he ever talk and/or ask for audience with the president to advise the president on his limitations in a democracy, where the rule of law is supreme? Then add the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, another lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria; then Minister of Works, Power and Housing Babatunde Fashola too, another lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, as well as many other lawyers in that government; yet they all are keeping mum as lady justice is suffering this wanton rape of her authority in the hands of their employer, President Muhammadu Buhari. 

Icheoku bemoans if only Gani Fawehinmi was still alive, no way would President Muhammadu Buhari dare and if he dared, the whole country will be literally on fire with legal fireworks to stop this madness. What a loss to Nigeria, especially the legal profession therein, that was the demise of Gani Fawehinmi.  Several years later, no one lawyer in Nigeria has been able to fill the very huge void left by him. It is indeed shameful the reactions so far from Nigerian lawyers to what President Muhammadu Buhari is doing to the law. It is a disheartening show of lack of courage and crass timidity that lawyers in Nigeria cannot rise up and defend their honor as lawyers and apostles of the  law and courts. If it is Sambo Dasuki as well as Nnamdi Kanu today, whose turn shall it be tomorrow to be summarily and arbitrarily similarly traumatized by injustice meted out by President Muhammadu Buhari?

Nigerians were warned that the old leopard cannot change its spots and true to prediction, President Muhammadu Buhari is now showing that his claimed "converted democrat" status was simply a ruse to con Nigerians of their votes during the last election. As warned, he has proved himself that the Muhammadu Buhari who overthrew democracy in 1983 and the one now masquerading as democratically elected President Muhammadu Buhari are but two faces of the same coin - a despotic tyrant who has no regard for the rule of law and rights of the citizens. Icheoku says when shall a Gani Fawehinmi reincarnate and when shall Nigerian lawyers become more active and truly give the citizens the confidence that they are constitutional rights defenders, who are watching their backs and watching out for them? Oh Gani, Nigeria misses you.