Why We’ll Accept FG’s National Honour On Our Father –Fawehinmi Family

FUNSHO AROGUNDADE

The family of the late legal luminary and legendary human rights activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, said Thursday that the family is pleased and will be accepting the national honour the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government has bestowed on their patriarch.

Speaking in a telephone chat on Channels TV, Mr. Mohammed Fawehinmi, the first son of the late Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said the decision of the Federal Government to confer the posthumous honour of the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger on their father and the legality surrounding the declaration of June 12 as the democracy Day is an absolutely right decision.

According to Fawehinmi, “This honour is absolutely right. This was what (Former President Olusegun) Obasanjo should have done since 1999 when everybody went to beg him. Afenifere begged him, and other notable politicians begged him but he refused and said it’s not going to happen. That’s how we understood that Obasanjo hated Abiola not just from Secondary School but even to the grave.”

Since Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1999, attempts had been made to recognise Chief Fawehinmi, even though his criticism of successive governments unabashedly intensified.

The late gadfly refused to recognise Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler who was Nigeria’s first democratically-elected president in the Fourth Republic, as a democrat or a leader with the interest of the masses at heart.

In 2008, he was offered a national honour as Order of the Federal Republic by President Umar Yar’Adua, an accolade he rejected on several bases of democratic ethos.

In 2014, five years after his passing, Yar’Adua’s successor, Goodluck Jonathan, decided to honour him posthumously with another national honour, but his family immediately rejected this on behalf of his memory.

The Fawehinmis were irked with the inclusion of former military President Ibrahim Babangida amongst those to be honoured alongside their departed patriarch and blasted the Jonathan administration for being insensitive to the traumatic experience which Babangida inflicted on the late Fawehinmi.

“We therefore, find it morally incongruous and psychologically debilitating for our family to stand on the same podium with General Babangida to receive awards,” the family said in the letter rejecting the award at that time.

But Mohammed Fawehinmi said the association of Chief Abiola with the latest offer made it difficult to reject like the previous ones.

“It is a welcome development. This is what we have been waiting for over the years. Good Nigerians have made several calls for Chief MKO Abiola to be recognised as a Nigerian president. For this government to have done this, it is a welcome gesture,” he said in a statement.

“It is a good news that MKO Abiola is going to be awarded GCFR honour and Babagana Kingibe to be awarded GCON, It is clear that Abiola was elected the president of this country, the mere fact that he was not sworn in does not mean he was not elected. This has vindicated Abiola.

“For my father’s honour, we thank the government for that. We know he deserved it. We are happy for that.”

“Accepting the award is a fuller affirmation of the commitment and the award is coming at the same time as the recognition of Abiola as the winner of the June 12 election.

“The award to Abiola is a veiled indictment of the old decision by the evil geniuses of yesteryears.

“This would have been my father’s happiest moment, because what he had canvassed for is the now being done.”

On the recognition of June 12 as Democracy Day, Fawehinmi noted that President Buhari is on the right path because there has never been any basis for May 29 to be proclaimed Nigeria’s Democracy Day.

“There is no basis for May 29 existing. It was an half attempt that came out of the head of President Obasanjo when he was elected as the President. This was an arrangement involving him, General Abudulsalami Abubakar and General Ibrahim Babangida. They all decided that June 12 will die a natural death but they were shocked as we continue to agitate and happily 25 years, we achieved our aim as June 12 has become a reality,” the younger Fawehinmi, also a lawyer said.

President Buhari on Wednesday has announced June 12 as the new Democracy Day in Nigeria, just as he also conferred a posthumous national honour of Grand Commander of The Federal Republic, GCFR title on the presumed winner of June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief M.K.O Abiola.

The President in a tweet on his official handle explained that June 12 is to replace May 29 because it is a symbolic day as the June 12, 1993 election was adjudged as the freest, fairest and most peaceful election since Nigeria’s Independence.

“June 12, 1993, was the day millions of Nigerians expressed their Democratic will in the freest, fairest and most peaceful elections since our Independence. That the outcome of that election was not upheld by the then military government does not detract from its democratic credentials,” he said.

The president also said the late Gani Fawehinmi, been a tireless fighter for human rights and democracy, and for the actualisation of the June 12, 1993 elections, will be posthumously awarded a GCON.

President Buhari disclosed that the commemoration and investiture will take place on Tuesday, June 12, 2018, a date which in future years will replace May 29 as a National Public holiday in the celebration of Nigeria’s Democracy Day.

Already, the President has directed the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, to gazette his order on June 12 and some heroes of democracy.

According to a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, the AGF is expected to take immediate steps to publish in order in the Federal Gazette.