Date Published: 10/12/09
THE CHIEF GANI FAWEHINMI I KNEW (Concluding Part) By Moshood Ademola Fayemiwo
In July 1993 shortly after Razor magazine of which I was publisher and editor—in-chief in Nigeria carried the block buster story of how Gen. Ibrahim Babangida orchestrated the assassination of Mr. Dele Giwa, founding editor of Newswatch magazine because the fearless late editor was planning to publish the drug-running charges that were hanging on Babangida’s neck as Chief of Army Staff under Gen. Muhammadu Buhari administration which prompted Babangida to stage his August 27, 1985 coup, I told all my staffers to disappear from our corporate office at Ikeja, Lagos. I knew the security agents of the Shonekan-led Interim National Government would be after us and they did. They only met brick walls as they combed the whole of Ikeja and Agege looking for Razor people but in Ilorin Kwara State, the police succeeded to grab Ayo Ayintete, one of our circulation/sales executives who I brought with me at inception from Daily Times newspaper. His friends and family in Lagos were concerned and were brought to my “other office.” I told them not to panic and promised nothing would befall the young man.
The following day, I dispatched two attorneys to Ilorin with just one mission: get the young man out of the Kwara State Police Detention facility either “officially” or “unofficially” whatever it would take and they should not return back to Lagos without the poor boy. One of the two lawyers was a classmate friend at the University of Lagos, Mr. Kunle Fadipe who was the President of the Law Student Society at UNILAG during his set and Mr. Femi Amokeodo based in Igbosere, Central Lagos. Fadipe was to apply the “learned” friend approach by threatening to sue the police in Kwara State for arresting a young man who was legitimately doing his job to earn a decent living. The “charge” against Ayintete was that he was selling a “seditious” material. But in Nigeria at that time, anarchy and doom were looming so nobody gave any regard to the rule of law so I knew Mr. Fadipe would not succeed with the corrupt Nigeria Police. So Mr. Amokeodo should step in because he was a former Superintendent of Police (SP) and later went to read Law at the University of Lagos and then became a practicing attorney. We had met earlier on during my first detention at the notorious Federal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau (FIIB), Alagbon Detention Facility, Ikoyi when Tony Orilade, Razor’s Entertainment Editor and I had earlier been detained over a story titled “The 1993 Presidential Election Annulment and the Future of Nigeria.” Amokeodo was representing the late Tunde Adebule, the notorious fraudster a.k.a 419 living in Ikeja and somehow we bonded. Mr. Amokeodo knew the “system” very well and when dealing with the police, he set aside “turenchi” (legal niceties) as SP Gwadabe of FIIB and Hausa people would say and come to reality. And my plan worked for the two attorneys came back with the poor boy intact three days later.
About a month later, Ms. Edna Ude my Woman Editor and Tony Orilade rushed to our “office”-we had several offices in those days in Nigeria-and said they had gone to The Bethel Church at Aja Lekki in Victoria Island and listened to the late Pastor Oduyemi preached. In the sermon, he had predicted the overthrow of the Shonekan-led ING in few months. I asked them to play the tape and I listened to the sermon. It was a hot story and I directed Dare Anako, my editor to use it for the week’s cover story. “Oga, these people would kill us o!” my boys shouted. “Then let them kill us,” I replied and we went to town with the story that week.
As usual, I told all my workers to disappear and gave instructions on how we should meet at the “office” for future publications. The security agents did come calling as predicted but this time it was the dreaded State Security Services (SSS) created by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida named after the Nazi Germany Gestapo, as opposed to the Nigerian Police. Somehow I didn’t know how it happened; they succeeded in grabbing both Orilade and Ude. They took both of them to their offices first at Shangisha in the outskirts of Ikeja and later moved them to Awolowo Road at Ikoyi. They took the duo essentially as hostages and insisted I show up. And I did and that was how Chief Gani Fawehinmi stepped in.
I told those scumbags to release my writers because I was the final arbiter, the last gate-keeper who decided what get published in the magazine so those poor chaps were innocent. Since they had me now, they should let them go. I instituted this policy throughout my publishing career in Nigeria. I constantly assured my writers that no matter the story, just bring it and if it is true, I would not abandon you as the Publisher because nothing gets published in any newspaper without getting the final nod from the Publisher/Editor-in-Chief and that makes the job of reporting enticing if writers/correspondents and other gate-keepers in this business would be confident that their editors would always have their back. Immediately Chief Fawehnmi heard of my ordeal, he dispatched Festus Keyamo-who is now doing fine on his own in Lagos-to prepare the necessary paper works. Keyamo was all over Ikeja, Ifako and Agege looking for Razor’s “office.” Finally, an insider brought him to my former wife’s beauty shop on Iju Road near Sir Shina Peter’s house. Chief Fawehinmi was allowed to meet with me at the SSS office and in many weeks and years later, he was to offer legal assistance to us as a corporate organization, assisted my family financially when I was “away” with the security agents and finally when I had had enough harassment, detentions, threats, and intimidation and told him I was re-locating to the Republic of Benin.
“Moshood, you must publish everything you knew once you’ve investigated your stories, cross-check them and found them to be true, just go ahead and publish. That is what journalism is all about,” he would counsel in his characteristic fiery voice.
Before Sani Abacha staged his coup on Tuesday November 17, 1993 he told me in his chambers he had written a book about the illegality of the Shonekan ING and wanted it launched. It took him less than two months to write the book, about 120 pages long. At the book launch at his law chambers at Ajao Estate, Anthony Village, Lagos, all the “radicals” and progressives were there: Femi Falana, Dr. Frederick Fasheun, Prof. Itse Sagay, Obayuwana, Ayo Olanrewaju, Lanre Arogundade, Mike Ozekhome, the late Dr. Tai Solarin-which was his last outing and as usual, embedded moles of the State Security Services (SSS) and Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) many of them I recognized and were openly praising the book. It was at that occasion that I last saw most of my colleagues especially Richard Akinola, Tokumboh Afikuyomi and many others.
Chief Fawehinmi told the audience that Shonekan would not survive 1993 and immediately Abacha came in he informed me he would defy the government and launch his political party, the National Conscience Party (NCP). And he did. I asked what the mission was and how we could assist at Razor. He said his intention was to make a statement, embarrass the illegal government and defy the Nigerian military dictatorship. He asked if we could publish the manifestoes of the NCP in Razor and drive for membership and I promised we would gladly do that and for free. Chief Fawehinmi was also a great family man although there were some things I didn’t like in the way he treated his second wife, Abike who lived with him at his GRA, Ikeja. Chief would just call her by name as if she was a house girl and it took me several months to know she was his second wife. Chief had invited me and my former wife to his Ikeja GRA residence and I had driven into his residence in my Mercedes Benz car. I had come to tell him I was going home first to change to a more dignified attire since I thought it may be a dinner. His friend and comrade, Dr. Femi Aborishade was in the house that day and Chief Fawehinmi shouted, “Abike, come out and meet Moshood!” I greeted the woman-I didn’t know she was his second wife because most of our meetings were always at his law chambers. When he came out and saw my car, he looked at me and smiled. It was a smile of disapproval so I said, “Chief, should radicals drive this type of cars?” “That is if they made the money as businessmen, sure but I can’t see myself drive a Mercedes Benz car in Nigeria” We all laughed! “But Chief mine is Tokumbo -the name for fairly-used cars in Nigeria- but your Peugeot 504 Car Chief is new from PAN,” I replied. “But it is assembled in Kaduna right here in Nigeria but this was imported,” he teased. “But both were made by white people anyway,” I replied and again we all burst into laughter.
Later that day, I met Chief’s first wife, Mrs. Ganiat and when she met my former wife, both later learned they were from the same place, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State. So I was curious during dinner and engaged Alhaja Ganiat in a conversation. She was the one who now revealed to me that Mrs. Abike Fawehinmi was the second wife. “What happened? Was it because of lack of love or what?” I asked. The woman-very, very humble, gentle, soft-spoken and amiable- smiled and told me that after her 8 th child or so, she told Chief Fawehinmi she was done with child-bearing. “I told him I don’t want to die, I am done! She said and we laughed.” Chief said he wanted more children and I told him to get another wife and that was how he married my second-referring to Mrs. Abike.” It was a great evening.
Many months later, Chief insisted that I bring my two boys: Fola and Femi to his law chambers. They were about 6 and 5 then and the precocious torts nearly turned his office upside down. When I shouted at the boys to behave, Chief Fawehinmi looked at me and asked,
“How many do you have?”
“Just these two boys, chief” I replied.
“How many do you plan to have? “I don’t know but the rate at which things are going in this country-that was 1995-it is not advisable to bring these innocent kids to suffer.” He didn’t say anything to that and that ended the conversation.
On numerous occasions during the kamikaze journalism we pioneered in Nigeria in the 1990s, when we hit the streets with those explosive stories in Razor, I would sneak into his chambers to use his law library while the security agents were chasing shadows. He had informed his library staffs to make sure they assisted me in aIl my research. Immediately my cup runneth over in late 1996 after a grueling six months detention first, at the notorious Adeniji Adele Police Detention and later at the dreaded Alagbon Detention Facility at Ikoyi in the hands of the Fabian Ver of Nigeria under Abacha, ASP Zakari Biu, I made up my mind I was through with Nigeria. I dispatched my family to Ghana first and sneaked a note to chief at his law chambers that I was gone. I didn’t want him to dissuade me from leaving Nigeria. By the time the Abacha goons trailed me to Cotonou, Benin Republic and kidnapped me back to Nigeria, Chief Fawehnmi was the first person my former wife got in touch with immediately and he swung into action. One of his workers, Mr. Ebun Olu-Adegboruwa who was detained with his 75-year old father at DMI sneaked the news out to Chief Fawehinmi and that was how my family knew where I was being kept six months after I was kidnapped by S. Adoli the Nigerian High Commissioner to Benin Republic.
There are many more because a tribute to Chief Fawehinmi could not be written in two installments. He was a great Nigerian, completely detribalized, patriotically-motivated, a fine and decent man, nationalistically-committed, genuinely-humane, truly-fearless, ideologically-convinced, transparently-honest, intellectually-sound, prodigiously-hardworking, and intrepidly-critical. Once he believed in anything and was convinced it was the right thing to do in Fawehinmi-land, his monomaniacal attention and commitment was unparalleled. For a nation in acute shortage of honest and straightforward souls and oozing of moral stench, Fawehinmi, even as Nigeria’s Al Capone, Mr. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida confessed, Chief Fawehinmi was a good man. Although the ideologicalization of his motives and commitment may be suspect-we leave that to political historians-Fawehinmi committed more to the struggle than many ideological turn-coats and fake status-quo pot-boilers scattered all over Nigeria. It is a shame he was born a Nigerian, a nation that wastes the talents of its best brains, the brightest and the finest.
Note : My president, Barak Obama has just won the Nobel Peace Prize, the third sitting U.S President to win the prize after Woodrow Wilson and FDR. I received a note from Mr. President just as I was preparing my last column for Pointblank News and I say congratulations to the First Family for this deservedly global recognition. And as my wife and I were rejoicing with you over the week, my wife as one of your Campaign Field Organizers here in Chicago wondered if you and Michelle will still be returning to our South Side Chicago after 2016.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Yours sincerely has been a columnist here for 12 months now and I am announcing that this is my last and final piece for Pointblank News. Although the column has not been regular because of other commitments- my Doctoral Program, book writing and most especially another promising magazine venture yours truly is packaging for the New Year 2010- I thank all my readers, admirers, friends and colleagues who have been loyal readers of this column and my other published books. I am leaving you for a while but it shan’t be long. I will be back on Monday January 04, 2010 when a new Afrocentric publication that some colleagues and I are packaging here in the United States for Africa and Africans at home and in the Diaspora hit cyberspace. For those who used to read Razor in those days-after earning a PhD in the greatest country on earth-the United States of America-including three masters degrees, I am now poised to take the struggle which started in Nigeria fifteen years ago to the global stage. The Razor phenomenon was just an experiment fifteen years ago and a child’s play compared with what is buzzing and coming out in 2010. At 47 years old now, something of the highest quality and of the American standard packaged with all seriousness, maturity, strict professionalism, highly-intellectualized and ethical standard is on its way. I knew early in life that journalism is my life and I am back. Trust me everything begins to change on Monday January 04, 2010. The Eagle is about to land and please watch out.
