By Olusegun Olanrewaju
The curtain finally fell last Wednesday on the scion of the gadfly, Gani Fawehinmi’s family in Lagos.

Fifty-two-year-old Mohammed, a lawyer and human rights advocate, like his late father, died on July 11, 2021, after raising a respiratory issue.

Mohammed, who complained of a breathing problem, was wheeled to an unidentified hospital in Lagos. He gave up the ghost shortly on arrival.

His friend, prominent lawyer and Minister of State for Labour and Productivity, Festus Keyamo, was one of the first to confirm Mohammed’s demise.

The wheel-chair-bound Mohammed (since age 47), was a Business Administration graduate of the University of Lagos (1991), also obtained an LL.B degree from the University of Buckingham, England.

He was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1998.

Mohammed earlier attended Kotun Memorial School, Surulere, Lagos and Federal Government College, Sokoto, for his primary and secondary education respectively.

Vicissitudes
Having been consigned to the swivel chair after an automobile accident he copped on the way home from work at his father’s chamber on September 23, 2003, Mohammed remained unmarried.
He gave the reasons in a 2018 interview when he said that he wouldn’t want any woman to marry him on the basis of pity.

Mohammed practised law like his father for two rather silent decades before he expired last week. He actually caught his legal teeth in his father’s chambers.

Until his demise, he was the head of Mohammed Fawehinmi chambers and the director of several literary-oriented companies, including Nigerian Law Publications Ltd, Books Industries Ltd, and Gani Fawehinmi Library and Gallery Ltd, all founded by his father.

It was probably for these reasons (disability and tutelage) that Mohammed was perceived as having had to live in the ‘shadows’ of his father, but never really grew into the larger shoes.

Before his death on September 5, 2009, the older Fawehinmi, Gani, was an established novelist, publisher, philanthropist, social critic, human and civil rights activist, and politician.

Mohammed was a member of several advocacy bodies and organisations such as the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), and the Ikeja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

For many who expected the firebrand in his father, the irrepressible Lagos lawyer who battled military rule relentlessly, the late Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi, they would not,
but, somehow be ‘disappointed’ with the tempo of his standard-bearing.

But others too, say Mohammed had come and done his part before taking the final bow.

Activism
There are perceptions as to his measurement on his scale of performance, but this is largely cast in the images of the shadow of his father.

He did give some kicks which probably signalled his innate desire to plot his own graph, especially within the human rights community.

Before that, he had dreamt of being a soldier, but he later confessed that his father beat him black and blue when he revealed the intention.

“Till he (the father) died, I don’t think he had ever been that angry,” he was quoted to have said.

Mohammed knocked hard when former Lagos State governor and now Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, attempted to ‘impose’ what was considered an outrageous school fees N350,000 for undergraduates while in office in Lagos.

Mohammed responded, drawing an ‘apt’ inference that, since Fashola, his father, Gani and himself, Mohammed, had all been beneficiaries of free education, he did not see any rationale behind the move to skyrocket school fees for university students in a year.

Mohammed juxtaposed Fashola’s position with his, insisting that the governor then was only attempting to make education ‘’inaccessible to the masses.”

Asking the people to ‘rise up and fight’, Mohammed got the sympathy of social media buffs who lauded his ‘concern’.

Some of the commentaries shed light in this regard: “He is a true son of his father,’’ one person posted. Another wrote: “Lol. Hope he has back up, or else he will just rant for knowledge.” And yet another commented: “How I wish this man wasn’t crippled. He would have been a great successor to his father.”

This compares with the post of another admirer who wrote online: “Thank you Mr Mohammed Fawehinmi, that God our father left you behind for us. What exactly would have been the position of your father, assuming he was still with us.

“If we can’t reach you physically, we would continue to reach you with our prayers.”

His activism also records that on May 10 2014, Mohammed faulted Nigeria on her transition programme and alleged human rights abuses.

He also once publicly picked on former military President, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, on March 4, 2014, over his alleged atrocities while in power, saying, ‘‘Babangida is evil. Even God will not forgive him.’’

On July 7, 2018, Mohammed launched verbal missiles against the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, over his role in the ‘MKO Abiola affair’. ‘’Obasanjo hated Abiola, even to the grave,’’ he said.

Mohammed was also outspoken, showing some qualities as an activist when he berated the leadership qualities of former Senate President, Bukola Saraki.

His words, on August 22, 2017: ‘’With Bukola Saraki as the Senate President, we are in trouble.’’

In one of his most frontal attacks, Mohammed also once called for the sack Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, over his reported recommendation to President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the then acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, over alleged diversion of loot, insubordination and disloyalty.

The outburst came at the venue of a judicial conference in Abuja in January 2020, at the peak of a period, public opinion felt Magu was doing well in office.

In a surprise move, Mohammed led his family to reject a centenary award awarded to their father, Gani by President Goodluck Jonathan, because of the listing of the arch-enemy, Ibrahim Baba Ngida, with the gadfly.

Despite his condition, he did not reject street activism. On January 20, 2012, he participated in a protest, becoming a regular face at the Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park in Ojota, Lagos.

‘‘I joined the protest for one reason, and that is to ensure that the masses of this country are not cheated. Right from independence, the masses have always been cheated,’’ he said.

There and then, he also castigated the nation’s labour movement, accusing them of being ‘a sell-out’.

But in 2018, Mohammed was accompanied by his mother to receive a posthumous national honour, GCON, on behalf of his late father.

He’ll be missed –Lawyers Jolted by the news, some lawyers and the human rights community last week lamented that Mr Mohammed Fawehinmi would be greatly missed.

The President of the African Bar Association (AFBA), Hannibal Uwaifo, described Mohammed’s demise as a very sad event.

He submitted that though Mohammed was not as active as his late father in human rights advocacy due to some physical challenges, that did not deter him from contributing his quota to the quest for freedom.

“In spite of his passing, the name of the Fawehinmi family will remain in gold in the history of the legal profession in Nigeria,” Uwaifo said.

Character sketch, A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, described the late Mohammed as a passionate lawyer.

He recalled that they had a close working relationship while he (Adegboruwa) worked in Gani Fawehinmi’s chambers.

“While I was in the chambers, Chief (the late Gani Fawehinmi) assigned him to me for mentoring and so, he was always following me to court.

‘‘We prepared processes together and he was quite very humble. It didn’t enter into his head that he was chief’s first son.”

Controversy
On the controversy trailing his marital life, Mohammed was to comment: “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.”

Condolences
President Muhammadu Buhari condoled with the family over the death of their son, Mohammed.

In a release by his Media Adviser, Femi Adesina, the president commiserated with Ganiat, the mother of the deceased, and the entire family, urging them to find comfort in God, ‘’who gives and takes’’.

“His body may have been broken, but his spirit was virile, agile, and he kept the flag of the family flying, doing justice to the memory of his late father,” the president mourned.

National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, described Mohammed’s death as “very depressing.”

“Mohammed has kept the activist fire of his dad burning since Gani Fawehinmi left us. Like his father, he was a lawyer totally committed to engendering societal change and development through the instrumentality of the law,’’ Tinubu said.

The Centre for Leadership and Justice, in its condolence message, to the Fawehinmis, expressed sadness and ‘’deep sense of great loss on the sudden death of our beloved Comrade
Mohammed.’’

We at the Centre for Leadership and Justice pray that God will give the family the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss.

‘’Mohammed will be sorely missed by all of us,’’ the centre stated.

He further described Mohammed as “a man of courage like his father, the late Gani Fawehinmi”.

He also praised him for being up and doing as well as his determination during his lifetime “to sustain the legacies of his father.”

Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Gani Adams, described Mohammed as “a man of courage like his father, the late Gani Fawehinmi”.

Adams also praised the deceased ‘‘for being up and doing as well as his determination during his lifetime to sustain the legacies of his father.”

Human rights activist and President of Centre for Change, Joe Okei-Odumakin, Mohammed’s death as shocking.

According to her, Mohammed kept the flag of the Fawehinmi legacy flying against the odds thrown up by the accident.

Describing the death as a ‘tragedy, Okei-Odumakin stated: “He was a chip off the old block in every way.

The Centre for Leadership and Justice, in its condolence message, to the Fawehinmis, expressed sadness and ‘‘deep sense of great loss on the sudden death of our beloved Comrade Mohammed.’’

We at the Centre for Leadership and Justice pray that God will give the family the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss.

Human rights group mourns Mohammed Fawehinmi, says death shocking

‘’Mohammed will be sorely missed by all of us,’’ the centre stated.

Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, summarised the eulogies for the fallen when he condoled with the family.

The governor averred that the late Mohammed did not like some would think, live under the shadows of his father ‘‘as he had grown to become a dependable comrade’’.

The governor also commiserated with Ondo State counterpart, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, and the people of Ondo on the demise of their prominent son.

“As a civil rights activist, he spent his life in the service of humanity and particularly for the emancipation of the Nigerian people.

‘‘Mohammed Fawehinmi was as consistent as his father, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi. He kept the flame of his father burning by fighting for the masses even on his wheelchair,’’ Sanwo-Olu said.

Medical report/autopsy?

Meanwhile, the family has dismissed reports that Mohammed died of COVID-19 complications.

In a statement on Friday, they said they were waiting for a medical report to ascertain the cause of his death.

Mohammed would only be buried after an autopsy has been carried on his corpse, the family said.