The Activist

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I apologise to you all for not bringing forth "Interview Thursday" this week. I may miss out on next week too and the reason for my extra-busy schedules will be known to you all in due course.

Though superbly busy but that will not deter me from paying a tribute to late Chief Gani Fawehimi a renown, die-hard human right lawyer and activist who passed on to the great beyond on the 5th of September, 2009 at the age of 71. I was going to do a post on his Punch interview that I read in 2007 before now where he talked about his family and his love for his mother but that has never being done. I may still go that lane one day.

Gani Fawehinmi during his sojourn on this earth represented a different symbol to different people but the foremost in the minds of many is that of social crusader, human right activist and challenger of the military rules for which he was jailed so many times that one lost counts. When I heard of his battle with cancer last year and the news of his return from UK where he had gone for treamtent, I said to myslef that he is a fighter and he would be with us many years to come. But no, he departed so suddenly!

One thing that I took away from Gani's commitment to social justice was his passion. So great was that PASSION that it shone through in all he did. It was there all along when he kept digging into the death of Dele Giwa, it was there in all the cases he handled, it was there when he challenged the govenrment. It was always there, his unduanted PASSION!

 

His commitment, his interest in social justice all stood him out of the crowd, his ingenuity too! It was this commitment to social justice that led him to Obafemi Awolowo Univeristy in 1981 when a student: Bukola Arogundade was beheaded in Ife town by unknown assailants. The school had being thrown into pandemonium and his present reassured students of hope that they thought was lost. He then made a strong statement in which he made reference to a need to have a "MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE" by the students. He sparked their brains and that gave birth to " Movement for Social Justice" a social-political movment which I later became a member of under which umbrella I served as political leaders and social crusader and activist in while I was in O.A.U.

Good night the great social crusader! Good night Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN).

For further reading:

Since I am fast becoming a photo journalist [if I may say so myself], I decided to share some of the stuff my camera picked up. Blame the camera for any errors and not me please!

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I could not decide very well from afar if trully the truck carried so many people, so when I got a better view, I went "waoh, this is serious".

Not that I have not thought of joining this kind of truck myself. It was bad one day that I had to stay at the bus stop forever and I was hoping for just any truck to offer help. Hmmm but seriously this kind of transporation is tough!

That was FESTAC office of the Nigerian Immigration Services. Hmmm, to apply and collect a passport became a very tasking job!

This cat was on the very top of one of the immigrations officers A/C. A homeless kitten may be and I could not even reach where the kitten was!

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Scofield in my wardrobe! Scofield helping out to type or rather to sleep! LOL

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I went to the Computer village Ikeja to buy stuff last Thursday and there was environmental sanitation going on I saw a group of people in about 3 different building so close to each other doing sanitation of the mind. The buildings were so close that I wonder why not have just one place for the prayer or the preaching and again I felt like asking if the remember to do the environmental sanitation before they start the mind sanitation! LOL

His immense contribution to development stands him out, his tiredless effort in seeing a better Nigeria makes him a force to reckon with. His TV program Patito's gang is used as an avenue to address different development issues and I commend him for such an initiative. He has added to his caps of developments by getting his own very blog. Pat Utomi is a blogger! I had lunch with him in the beginning of August with Poeticallytinted in attendance I wished we have an eloquent, focused and transformational individual like him to lead this country. I delightfully welcome PU on Interview Thursday!
 

Who is Pat Utomi?

I am a teacher. Forget the garnishings. I am basically a person commited to traditional notions of a teacher as transmitter of knowledge and values that can help lift the dignity of the human person.I have found many platforms for performing this traditional chore; in the classroom, in tv studios, as a so called public intellectual, newspaper columnist, a sort-of patron saint of young entrepreneurs so I can show thought can work in action; as manager traversing the nexus of idedas and praxis and as man of family, among others. My antecedents are very Pan-Nigerian; born in Kaduna on 6/2/56 with primary education in several cities of the North, secondary education in Ibadanin the Southwest and University and marriage into the southeast with origins of parents and by the Nigerian waya persorn from the SouthSouth. 

 

I have a fun family 'led' by a wife who looks half her age as the age range of our children go from nearly 24 to 8.My wife is a Consultant Orthodontist and senior faculty member of the College of Medicine at the University of Lagos where we met as she was finishing her studies 27 years ago. Two of our children have graduated and the others are coming along by God's Grace. 

What do you think as a lasting solution to the Naija Delta crisis?

 
You will be running for presidency in 2011, I will like to know the 5 important projects you will focus on in office?