By Sylvester Odion Akhaine

Of fond memory. He is no more. While he lived, he gave hope to the masses of his people. He had a prior knowledge of what would become one of my philosophical yields: that if a leader does nothing at all, he must be able to inspire hope. He abhorred injustice. He fought it with every sinew of his being until death prevailed. Upon his death, his executor in the probate process unveiled what would be one of the most comprehensive wills ever written. He bequeathed benefits to everyone dear to him and his extended family.

My subject was caught on the downside of life when he started his legal education at the Holborn College in the United Kingdom. His father, a financier, passed away in 1963, when this writer was residing in the spirit world, waiting to be sired by mother Victoria and Odion. Without waiting for the pitiful empathy of some philanthropic entities, he had to fend for himself. He did menial jobs: cleaner, petrol station attendant, security guard, among others.

Like all courageous and determined people, it is not life that matters, but the courage that is brought to bear on it. He completed education for his legal profession and headed home. His country was run at the time, for the most part, by men on horseback a la Samuel Finer.

My subject had a choice: law and access to justice or law and access to profit. As Frantz Fanon, the Martinican psychiatrist, philosopher, and revolutionary, wisely counselled in The Wretched of the Earth, “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it”.

Before casting his lot, he aligned with our dear Professor Issa Shivji’s thought in his “Law and Access to Justice,” which this writer published in 2000. My subject felt injustice, rather than simply thinking law.

As Shivji puts it: the first lesson is that no discussion, articulation, conceptualisation and evaluation of the machinery of justice has any meaning unless it centrally addresses the question of accessibility to justice, or lack of it…” My subject chose law and access to justice.

With a clear orientation, my subject threw down the gauntlet in the arena of justice, in defence of the poor. Somewhere in the Middle-Belt of his country, my subject rose in defence of Bala Abashe, a factory worker and poor man by virtue of relations of production. Andrew Obeya, his adversary, was Secretary to the Government of the then Benue-Plateau State. He was well to do, in other words, rich.

Abashe had accused Obeya of an affair with his wife in a car and sought justice. My subject took up the case, as they say, pro bono, while the state government stood behind its official. He was pressured to drop the case; when that failed, Obeya was forced to resign. In the process, the bureaucratic oppressor was forced to resign. But the state, in a Nietzschean sense, “the coldest of all cold monsters”, took vengeance; my subject was unjustly incarcerated for nine months. This was in 1969.

My subject never looked back on the path of expanding the ambit of freedom. Then came the case of Minere Amakiri, a journalist with the Mid-West Observer, who was brutalised for a report published in the newspaper on the birthday of Alfred Diette-Spiff, the Military Governor of Rivers State. Arrogant power viewed the report as uncomplimentary to the pageantry of a birthday celebration on 30 July 1973. For this reason, Amakiri was tortured.

He was given 24 strokes of the cane while his head was shaved with a blunt razor. My subject took the matter to the temple of justice and sued Mr Ralph Iwowari, the Aide-de-Camp of the Governor, for assault and battery. The lady of justice, not so blind to the merit of the case, found in favour of Amakiri, complemented it with an award of N10, 000 for damages.

Of interest here is the reification of the principle of fair hearing, to put it in the Latin phrase often preferred by lawyers, Audi alteram partem. My subject rose to the rescue of some students who had been unjustly rusticated by the management of the University of Maiduguri, in Nigeria’s North-East. The matter went up to the Supreme Court, and the apex court ruled in favour of the students. As you see, my subject is the brain behind Garba & Ors v. University of Maiduguri, famously referenced in fair hearing cases in the judicial temple.

My subject’s country revels in its democracy. After the epic struggle against military rule, he helped nudge it towards consolidation. Despite the promises of freedom, the minders of the Nigerian state were ready to constrict it.

In the elite recruitment process, the forte of political parties, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the electoral management body, imposed stringent conditions for party registration. On the other hand, the parties sought to prevent prospective aspirants by imposing nomination fees. It was my subject who rose to the rescue. As always, the silk and gown went to court to challenge the matter.

INEC’s action was based on the inability of my subject’s National Conscience Party (NCP) to show proof of offices in at least two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 states; detailed bank statements; names and addresses of members of parties’ executive arms; and prohibitive administrative registration fees. The Supreme Court declared the criteria unconstitutional.

As to how my subject came to call me the Stormy Petrel, I was an activist, have not abdicated, and played a role in the student movement. I was fearless. I jumped down from two floors of the University of Lagos hall of residence, fleeing from state security services; faced a cordon of armed policemen in protest marches; “disappeared” from the Lion Building Police Station, Broad Street, Marina, and wrote incendiary and logical critiques of public policies. My subject could not but admire my soldiery; hence he called me the Stormy Petrel.

When I tied the nuptial knot in 1997, he gave me a cash gift of N10,000. In his arduous pursuit of justice, my subject prosecuted over 6000 cases. He was hounded by the state, professional colleagues and was incarcerated 32 times. My subject is Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM), and Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON). He joined his maker on September 5, 2009.

Adieu!

Professor Akhaine is of the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University.