By Akinwale Kasali
10 years after the passing of Human Rights activist and legal luminary, Gani Fawehinmi in a titanic battle with lung cancer, a call has been made for the naming of a national monument after him.
To celebrate the 10th year anniversary , human rights activists, legal luminaries and Nigerians from all walks of life trooped to a symposium held in his honour in Lagos.
At the symposium, they called on President Muhammadu Buhari to re-name the Nigeria Law School after the legal icon.
Comrade Adeniyi Alimi, the Executive Director for the Coalition of Civil and Human Rights Organizations, COCHRO, urged President Buhari to re-name the Nigeria Law School after the late legal
luminary and social crusader, who contributed immensely to the development of the legal profession in Africa, particularly, Nigeria.
He also called for the unconditional release of all political detainees across the length and breadth of the country including Saharareporters, Publisher, Comrade Omoyele Sowore, and journalist,Agba Jaligo.
The symposium also featured protests demanding for the unconditional release of Sowore, who was the Presidential Candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the 2019 general elections, and other political detainees in the country.
His words: ” Gani’s contribution towards restoring democracy back to Nigeria after many years of military incursion into our governance cannot be over emphasized. He was involved in the widening of our political space through constitutional means”.
Speaking further on Sowore, the rights activist disclosed that they put their two million- man march rally on hold in solidarity with Nigerians living in south Africa on their present predicament, maintaining that all the allegations leveled against Sowore were a figment of security agents to mislead Buhari’s administration, adding that all the said allegations were baseless and lacked any modicum of truth.
He insisted that the Buhari government lacks all the tenets of democracy such as accountability, transparency,free and fair election, political equality and respect for citizens’ rights. All these, he said, have eluded the country under Buhari.
According to him; “The purpose of law in any sane society, is to bring good governance to the masses. A government like that of Buhari is not ready to cater for the welfare and security of Nigerians.
“The interlocutory injunction to detain Sowore for 45 days is illegal,barbaric, draconian,tyrannical and as democracy fighters, we will not fold our arms and allow Buhari to draw the country back to the dark days of Military era.We have concluded arrangement to collaborate with other groups to launch a crucial sphere of the struggle which would make The 2012 Occupy Nigeria a child play”
Sulaiman, therefore, warned the nation’s judiciary against subjected itself to the whims and caprices of the President on issues of national importance.
