Speeches

Tribute To Chief Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi (SAN)

Sep 10, 2009 - On behalf of the Government and the good people of Lagos State, I commiserate with the family of Late Chief Gani Oyesola Fawehinmi, the entire Civil Society Community, including the Media, Students' and Labour organizations and several millions of helpless Nigerian masses for whom he lived, fought and died in the manner of a great hero.

In a country that was built on the rat race of self-centeredness and at a time some of his professional colleagues preferred to assume a cold complicity of silence an.d stately conspiracy against the people, Gani chose to pitch tent with the masses in the trenches.

Gani's life struggle represents a charter of developmental objectives for our Government. Long before nations of the world converged together to sign the Charter for Millennium Development Goals, Gani had agitated for good governance and public probity as the vehicles for the delivery of qualitative education, reliable and affordable health care, eradication of poverty, enthronement of the rule of law as the pre-requisite for fighting injustice.

Indeed, no amount of words and encomiums will be commensurate in the appreciation of the laudable and long¬standing contributions of Gani Fawehinmi in the evolution of our great country, Nigeria.

What honour can we do this great man than to ensure that the import of his message is not lost on us as a people?

As a mortal, he certainly was not without his own faults or limitations, and while some may have disagreed with him as a messenger or the mode of delivery of the message, it was difficult to disagree with his message, which was consistent; and the message remains our challenge today.

It remains our Minimum Development Goal and a light into our path in our quest for good governance.

We must not let Gani's life struggles end here. It must be the rallying point for all men of goodwill, young and old. If we didn't listen to him while he was alive, we must listen to him from indeath.

We must chart a new beginning for Nigeria from this loss.

If truly Nigeria must be great again, we could not ask for a better rallying. point. A pledge to be a better Nigerian made from here today as a memorial to Gani's honour will represent the first building blocks of a new Nigerian life.

Are we all ready to make the pledge to be law abiding, to Iove one another, to eschew ethnicity and religion intolerance?

This is the way to immortalize Gani, a fallen patriot.

God night and rest in perfect peace, dear esteemed jurist, compatriot and elder statesman.

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State