By Akinwale Kasali and Ayodele Oni
“I look at my ordeal as part of life’s buffet just like it served my late father on several occasions. I feel I’m in a mini detention centre at the moment. But then, I’m positive that one day, I will be free. But I’m glad that I have been able to practice as a trained lawyer despite the tragedy that I have encountered in life”
The above quote is an extract from an interview granted by Mohammed Gani Fawehinmi, son of late Gani Fawehinmi, SAM, SAN, to a national newspaper.
Mohammed’s life was that of joy and sadness and sorrow. Born with a silver spoon, he had the best education in some of the best schools locally and internationally. He had three degrees to his name.
His life was all set to bloom when tragedy struck early in his career as a lawyer.
He first studied Business Administration at the University of Lagos in 1991. Then, following in his father’s footstep, he went to the University of Buckingham, England where he obtained a law degree, LLB. Back to Nigeria, he went to the Law School in 1998. Out of the Law School, with a BL, he had a ready job at his father’s Law Firm, unarguably, one of the most stock Law Firms in Nigeria. Till date, no library compares to its library.
But a couple of years later, in 2003, tragedy struck. He was driving back home – the Ikeja GRA – from his father’s Law Firm when tragedy struck. He was involved in a lone vehicle accident which automatically changed his life.
The vibrant young man became wheelchair-bound. Until his father, Gani Fawehinmi died, he never stopped lamenting the tragedy that befell his son. He blamed it, partly, on Nigeria’s poor health system. But for that, he usually said, his son, Mohammed, could have been as fit as fiddle. By the time he was flown out of the country for better medicare, it was late.
But that did not kill Mohammed’s spirit. Atimes gloomy, but he remained his vibrant self. He was a lion heart. He bore his pains with absolute calmness. He was a commentator on national and current issues. He was an interviewer’s delight. Like his father, he talked tough and blunt. Like his father, he fought for the downtrodden. Like his father, he was at home with the civil society. Like his father, he was a defender of the truth.
But most important, he practiced law.
For 26 years, he did. It gave him joy. He did not allow anything to distract him.
He was into his work. Mohammed never got married.
In an interview he granted in 2018, he explained why. He said the accident he had which confined him to the wheel chair affected his life in many ways.
“I just felt that I shouldn’t bother any woman with my condition. I didn’t want anybody to marry me out of pity. Even though I always have females around me, it is not every woman that can stay with a person with disability of my kind.
“Most of the women I have met in recent times are not the ones that can stay with a man. They are the type who would want to attend parties and keep all sorts of friends instead of looking after me.
“Of course, a few have come close to what I want but the temperament is nothing to write home about”.
Mohammed died in the early afternoon of Wednesday, August 11, after a very brief illness.
Family sources said he complained of shortness of breath, and passed on shortly after he was taken to a hospital.
His death comes as an indescribable shock to his family, and friends, especially, to his mother, Ganiat. The family is so shocked it was yet to release a statement at the time of writing this.
In his reaction, Minister for State, Labour, Festus Keyamo, SAN, said “I am devastated and very heartbroken.” Keyamo was a staff of Gani Fawehinmi Law Firm before he struck out.
Finally, Mohammed has been set free from the “mini detention” where he said he was. And he is free from pains.
He died at the age of 52.
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