Human Right Icons in Nigeria’s history BY MR.RIGHTS

 

All around the world, there are certain individuals who lived in the pursuit of freedom and justice for all and are  recognized as icons and champions of human rights, such individuals include, Mathaman Gandhi of India, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Martin Luther King Junior, Malcon X, and many others.

Such individuals are also present in Nigeria and we have identified some of those who had stood and fought for the rights of others and the general good of the society in their life sojourn. These set of people cut across every tribe, region, and in religion. They are in every sphere of life and professions.

Below is the short history of human right icons in Nigeria.

Chief Gani Fawehinmi (The people's president)

Top on the list of human Right Champions in Nigeria is late Chief Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi, born on 22 April 1938  and died on the 5^th of  September 2009. He was a Nigerian author, publisher, philanthropist, social critic and a human and civil rights lawyer.

Fawehinmi, popularly called Gani, was born on 22 April 1938, into the Fawehinmi family of Ondo, in Ondo State and died on the 5th of September 2009 at the age of 71.

While in college, he was popularly known as "Nation" because of his passionate interest in national, legal and political affairs. He was an avid reader of Daily Times and West African Pilot, the most popular newspapers in Nigeria at that time.

Gani Fawehinmi was elevated to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), the highest legal title in Nigeria in September, 2001.

With his boundless energy, he tenaciously and uncompromisingly pursued and crusaded his beliefs, principles and ideals for the untrammelled rule of law, undiluted democracy, all embracing and expansive social justice, protection of fundamental human rights and respect for the hopes and aspirations of the masses who are victims of misgovernment of the affairs of the Nation.

On June 11, 1993 Fawehinmi was awarded the biennial Bruno Kreisky Prize. This prize, named in honour of Bruno Kreisky, is awarded to international figures who advance human rights causes. In 1998, he received the International Bar Association's 'Bernard Simmons Award' in recognition of his human-rights and pro-democracy work. In 1994 he and some other notable Nigerians formed the National Conscience Party of Nigeria which exists till today and he stood for a presidential election in 2003 under the umbrella of the National Consci                                                            ence Party.

In 1986, while Chief Gani Fawehinmi was Dele Giwa's Lawyer, the latter was killed in a bomb blast under suspicious circumstances.

As a result of his activities, chief Gani Fawehinmi had been arrested, detained and charged to court several times. His international passport was seized on many occasions and his residence and Chambers were searched several times. He was beaten up time after time and was deported from one part of the country to another to prevent him from being able to effectively reach out to the masses among whom he was popular. His books were confiscated by the Federal Military Government and his library at Surulere, a suburb of Lagos, were set ablaze. His law Chambers at Anthony Village, Lagos State, were invaded by persons suspected to be agents of the government. The guards were shot, two of them seriously wounded.

In the process of his crusades for the rule of law, the hopes and aspirations of the poor and the oppressed, he fought many battles against military dictatorship as a result of which he had been arrested several times by the military governments and their numerous security agents. He was dumped in many police cells and detained in several prisons between 1969 and 1996.

His supporters have called him "the scourge of irresponsible governments, a sphygmomanometer with which the blood pressure of dictators is gauged, the veritable conscience of the nation and the champion of the interests and causes of the masses".Many Nigerians called him the people's president.

Gani, as he was fondly called, died in the early hours of 5 September 2009 after a prolonged battle with lung cancer. He was 71 years old. He was buried on September 15, 2009 in his home town of Ondo, Nigeria. Gani Fawehinmi died a disappointed man, because of the state of his country at the time of his death, he refused the highest honour accorded him by Nigeria on his death bed^.In 2008. Mr Gani Fawehinmi rejected one of the highest national honours that can be bestowed on a citizen by the Nigerian government — Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) — in protest  of the many years of misrule since Nigeria's independence.

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (The doyen of female rights in Nigeria and the Mother of Africa)

Funmilayo Ransome Kuti (25 October 1900 Abeokuta, Nigeria - 13 April 1978 Lagos, Nigeria),  was born as Francis Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas to Mr Daniel Olumeyuwa Thomas and Mrs Lucretia Phyllis Omoyeni Adeosolu. She was a teacher, political campaigner, women's rights activist and traditional aristocrat. She served with distinction as one of the most prominent leaders of her generation.

Ransome-Kuti's political activism led to her being described as the doyen of female rights in Nigeria, as well as to her being regarded as "The Mother of Africa." Early on, she was a very powerful force advocating for the Nigerian woman's right to vote. She was described in 1947, by the West African Pilot as the "Lioness of Lisabi" for her leadership of the women of the Egba clan that she belonged to on a campaign against their arbitrary taxation. That struggle led to the abdication of the Egba high king Oba Ademola II in 1949.

Kuti was the mother of the activists Fela Anikulapo Kuti, a musician, Beko Ransome-Kuti, a doctor, and Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, a doctor and a former health minister of Nigeria. She was also grandmother to musicians Seun Kuti and Femi Kuti.

Throughout her career, she was known as an educator and activist. She and Elizabeth Adekogbe provided dynamic leadership for women's rights in the '50s. She founded an organization for women in Abeokuta, with a membership tally of over 20 000 individuals spanning both literate and illiterate women.

Ransome-Kuti launched the organization into public consciousness when she rallied women against price controls which were hurting the female merchants of the Abeokuta markets. Trading was one of the major occupations of women in the Western Nigeria of the time. In 1949, she led a protest against Native Authorities, especially against the Alake of Egbaland. She presented documents alleging abuse of authority by the Alake, who had been granted the right to collect the taxes by his colonial suzerain, the Government of the United Kingdom. He subsequently relinquished his crown for a time due to the affair. She also oversaw the successful abolishing of separate tax rates for women. In 1953, she founded the Federation of Nigerian Women Societies which subsequently formed an alliance with the Women's International Democratic Federation.

Funmilayo Ransome Kuti campaigned for women's votes', and she was for many years a member of the ruling National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party, but was later expelled when she was not elected to a federal parliamentary seat. At the NCNC, she was the treasurer and subsequent president of the Western NCNC women's Association. After her suspension, her political voice was diminished due to the direction of national politics, as both of the more powerful members of the opposition, Awolowo and Adegbenro, had support close by. However, she never truly ended her activism. In the 1950s, she was one of the few women elected to the house of chiefs. At the time, this was one of her homeland's most influential bodies.

During the Cold War and before the independence of Nigeria, Funmilayo Kuti travelled widely and angered the Nigerian as well as British and American Governments by her contacts with the Eastern Bloc. This included her travel to the former USSR, Hungary and China where she met Mao Zedong. In 1956, her passport was not renewed by the government because it was said that "it can be assumed that it is her intention to influence women with communist ideas and policies."She was also refused a U.S. visa because the American government alleged that she was a communist.

In old age, her activism was over-shadowed by that of her three sons, who provided effective opposition to various Nigerian military juntas. In 1978 Funmilayo was thrown from a second-floor window in her son Fela's compound, a commune known as the Kalakuta Republic, was stormed by one thousand armed military personnel. She lapsed into a coma in February of that year, and died on 13 April 1978, as a result of her injuries. She is a Winner of the Lenin Peace Prize.

Margaret Ekpo (A woman of substance)

Margaret Ekpo (1914-2006) was a Nigerian women's rights activist and social mobilizer who was a pioneering female politician in Nigeria's First Republic and a leading member of a class of traditional Nigerian women activists, many of whom rallied women beyond notions of ethnic solidarity.

She played major roles as a grassroot and nationalist politician in the Eastern Nigerian city of Aba, in the era of an hierarchical and male-dominated movement towards independence, with her rise not the least helped by the socialization of women's role into that of helpmates or appendages to the careers of males.

Margaret Ekpo's first direct participation in political ideas and association was in 1945. Her husband was indignant with the colonial administrators treatment of indigenous Nigerian doctors but as a civil servant, he could not attend meetings to discuss the matter. Margaret Ekpo then attended meetings in place of her husband, the meetings were organized to discuss the discriminatory practices of the colonial administration in the city and to fight cultural and racial imbalance in administrative promotions. She later attended a political rally and was the only woman at the rally, which saw fiery speeches from Mbonu Ojike, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Herbert Macaulay. By the end of the decade, she had organized a Market Women Association in Aba to unionize market women in the city. She used the association to promote women solidarity as a platform to fight for the economic rights of women, economic protections and expansionary political rights of women.

Margaret Ekpo's awareness of growing movements for civil rights for women around the world prodded her into demanding the same for the women in her country and to fight the discriminatory and oppressive political and civil role colonialism played in the subjugation of women. She felt that women abroad including those in Britain, were already fighting for civil rights and had more voice in political and civil matters than their counterparts in Nigeria. She later joined the decolonization-leading National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NGNC), as a platform to represent a marginalized group. In the 1950s, she also teamed up with Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti to protest killings at an Enugu coal mine; the victims were leaders protesting colonial colonial practices at the tine. In 1953, Ekpo was nominated by the NCNC to the regional House of Chiefs, and in 1954 she established the Aba Township Women's Association. As leader of the new market group, she was able to garner the trust of a large amount of women in the township and turn it into a political pressure group. By 1955, women in Aba had outnumbered men voters in a city wide election.

She won a seat to the Eastern Regional House of Assembly in 1961, a position that allowed her to fight for issues affecting women at the time. In particular, there were issues on the progress of women in economic and political matters, especially in the areas of transportation around major roads leading to markets and rural transportation in general.

Mallam Aminu Kano (The protector of the communners)

Aminu Kano (1920—April 17, 1983) was a Muslim politician from Nigeria. In the 1940s, he led an Islamic movement in the north of the country in opposition to British rule. The Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport and the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, both in Kano, Kano State, are named after him.

While in Bauchi, he spoke freely on political issues and extended his educational horizon by engaging in some various political and educational activities beyond his formal teaching duties. He wrote a pamphlet, 'Kano, Under the Hammer of the Native Administration, and along with Balewa, was a member of the Bauchi General Improvement Union..

However, in 1950, he led a splinter group of young radicals from Jam'iyyar Mutanen Arewa, and formed the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU).

Aminu Kano co-founded the Northern Elements Progressive Union as a political platform to challenge what he felt was the autocratic and feudalistic actions of the Native Northern Government. He geared his attack on the ruling elite including the emirs, who were mostly Fulanis. The potency of his platform was strengthened partly because of his background. His father was an acting Alkali in Kano who came from a lineage of Islamic clerics, Aminu Kano also brought up Islamic ideas on equity in his campaign trails during the first republic. Many talakawas (commoners) in Kano lined up behind his message and his political stature grew from the support of the Kano commoners and migratory petty traders in the north. Many of the tradesmen later manned the offices of NEPU. He also sought to use politics to create an egalitarian Northern Nigerian society.

Another major idea of his in the prelude to the first republic was the breakup of ethnically based parties. The idea was well received by his emerging support base of petty traders and craftsmen in towns along the rail track. The men and women were mostly migratory individuals searching for trade opportunities and had little ethnic similarities with their host communities. He also proposed a fiscal system that favors heavy taxation of the rich in the region and was notably one of the few leading Nigerian politicians that supported equal rights for women.

Mallam Aminu Kano is highly respected politician in Northern Nigeria. He symbolized democratization, women's empowerment and freedom of speech.

Ayodele Awojobi (Dead Easy and  the Akoka Giant)

Ayodele Oluwatuminu Awojobi (March 12, 1937 – September 23, 1984), also known by the nicknames "Dead Easy", "The Akoka Giant", and "Macbeth", was a Nigerian academic, author, inventor, social crusader and activist.

Ayodele Awojobi, in the wake of the presidential election results that returned the incumbent, Shehu Shagari as President in the Nigerian Second Republic, became very vocal in the national newspapers and magazines, going as far as sueing the Federal Government of Nigeria for what he strongly believed was a widespread election rigging. With all his court cases against the Nigerian government thrown out of court, he delved into the law books, himself being only a mechanical engineer, claiming that he would earn his law degrees in record time, to enable him better argue with the opposition at the federal courts.

He used the universities as a bastion, going from campus to campus to make speeches at student-rallies, hoping to sensitize them to what he perceived as the ills of a corrupt government. Ayodele Awojobi authored several political books over the course of his ideological struggles against a perceived, corrupt federal government. These books were usually made available during his public rallies or symposiums.

Ayodele Awojobi died in the morning of Sunday, September 23, 1984, at age 47.

Usually every year till date, a tribute or two in Ayodele's honour, would be published in the form of an article in a national newspaper, such as the one published by The Nation on November 5, 2009 titled, Tribute to Ayodele Awojobi. In October 2009, the governor of Lagos State Babatunde Fashola dedicated a statue of Awojobi at Onike Roundabout, Yaba, Lagos in a garden named after him.On September 23, 2010, Birrel street – a prominent street in Yaba Local Government Council Area – was renamed Prof. Ayodele Awojobi Avenue; a further tribute to Awojobi's memory.

Fela Kuti (voice of the masses)

Fela Kuti (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti; 15 October 1938 – 2 August 1997) also known as Fela Anikulapo Kuti or simply Fela was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.

After Fela and his band returned to Nigeria from london, the band was renamed The Afrika '70, as lyrical themes changed from love to social issues. He then formed the Kalakuta Republic, a commune, a recording studio, and a home for the many people connected to the band that he later declared independent from the Nigerian state. Fela set up a nightclub in the Empire Hotel, first named the Afro-Spot and then the Afrika Shrine, where he both performed regularly and officiated at personalized Yoruba traditional ceremonies in honor of his tribe's ancestral faith. He also changed his middle name to Anikulapo (meaning "He who carries death in his pouch"),stating that his original middle name of Ransome was a slave name.

Fela's music became very popular among the Nigerian public and Africans in general.In fact, he made the decision to sing in Pidgin English so that his music could be enjoyed by individuals all over Africa, where the local languages spoken are very diverse and numerous. As popular as Fela's music had become in Nigeria and elsewhere, it was also very unpopular with the ruling government, and raids on the Kalakuta Republic were frequent. During 1972, Ginger Baker recorded Stratavarious with Fela appearing alongside Bobby Gass.

The Kalakuta Republic being burnt by the NPF and Military in 1977.

In 1977, Fela and the Afrika '70 released the album Zombie, a scathing attack on Nigerian soldiers using the zombie metaphor to describe the methods of the Nigerian military. The album was a smash hit and infuriated the government, setting off a vicious attack against the Kalakuta Republic, during which one thousand soldiers attacked the commune. Fela was severely beaten, and his elderly mother was thrown from a window, causing fatal injuries. The Kalakuta Republic was burned, and Fela's studio, instruments, and master tapes were destroyed. Fela claimed that he would have been killed had it not been for the intervention of a commanding officer as he was being beaten. Fela's response to the attack was to deliver his mother's coffin to the Dodan Barracks in Lagos, General Olusegun Obasanjo's residence, and to write two songs, "Coffin for Head of State" and "Unknown Soldier", referencing the official inquiry that claimed the commune had been destroyed by an unknown soldier.

Despite the massive setbacks, Fela was determined to come back. He formed his own political party, which he called Movement of the People. In 1979, he put himself forward for President in Nigeria's first elections for more than a decade, but his candidature was refused. At this time, Fela created a new band called Egypt '80 and continued to record albums and tour the country. He further infuriated the political establishment by dropping the names of ITT Corporation vice-president Moshood Abiola and then General Olusegun Obasanjo at the end of a hot-selling 25-minute political screed titled "I.T.T. (International Thief-Thief)".

In 1984, Muhammadu Buhari's government, of which Kuti was a vocal opponent, jailed him on a charge of currency smuggling which Amnesty International and others denounced as politically motivated. Amnesty designated him a prisoner of conscience,and his case was also taken up by other human rights groups. After 20 months, he was released from prison by General Ibrahim Babangida.

Once again, Fela continued to release albums with Egypt '80, made a number of successful tours of the United States and Europe and also continued to be politically active. In 1986, Fela performed in Giants Stadium in New Jersey as part of the Amnesty International A Conspiracy of Hope concert, sharing the bill with Bono, Carlos Santana, and The Neville Brothers. In 1989, Fela and Egypt '80 released the anti-apartheid Beasts of No Nation album that depicts on its cover U.S. President Ronald Reagan, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and South African Prime Minister Pieter Willem Botha.

He was a candid supporter of human rights, and many of his songs are direct attacks against dictatorships, specifically the militaristic governments of Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s. He was also a social commentator, and he criticized his fellow Africans (especially the upper class) for betraying traditional African culture. The African culture he believed in also included having many wives (polygyny) and the Kalakuta Republic was formed in part as a polygamist colony. Bypassing editorial censorship in Nigeria's predominantly state controlled media, Kuti began in the 1970s buying advertising space in daily and weekly newspapers such as The Daily Times and The Punch in order to run outspoken political columns. Published throughout the 1970s and early 1980s under the title Chief Priest Say, these columns were essentially extensions of Kuti's famous Yabi Sessions—consciousness-raising word-sound rituals, with himself as chief priest, conducted at his Lagos nightclub. Organized around a militantly Afrocentric rendering of history and the essence of black beauty, Chief Priest Say focused on the role of cultural hegemony in the continuing subjugation of Africans. Kuti addressed a number of topics, from explosive denunciations of the Nigerian Government's criminal behavior; Islam and Christianity's exploitative nature, and evil multinational corporations; to deconstructions of Western medicine, Black Muslims, sex, pollution, and poverty. Chief Priest Say was cancelled, first by Daily Times then by Punch, ostensibly due to non-payment, but many commentators^[who?] have speculated that the paper's respective editors were placed under increasingly violent pressure to stop publication.

Hajia Gambo Sawaba (1933-2001) was a Nigerian politician and activist who was a supporter of the Northern Elements Progressive Union during the Nigerian First Republic. She was one of the early members of NEPU in Zaria, then the party identified with the working class and poor and was manned by their main support base. Her political activities during the period earned her persecutions from both the colonial authorities and the native administrations which resulted in her being incarcerated for more than a dozen times. Her biography included notes on several instances of beatings and assaults attributed to the NPC’s Yan Mahaukita.

She is also known for some of her charitable causes and also for her views on womens liberation in the arena of politics.

The political environment in Northern Nigeria was dominated by the Northern peoples Congress who had the support of the leading Emirs in Northern Nigeria and the colonial authorities. Sawaba belonged to NEPU, a party she joined in Zaria when a local branch was formed and had to hold secretive meetings to shield the prying eyes of native authority officials especially the police from their activities. NEPU's early message was to rally round the Talakawa(commoner) in their fight against the colonists and also for their empowerment in a region dominated by the elites or Sarakuna (Rich)

The Zaria branch then held meetings at the house of Mohammed Alangade, apart from stating their goals inline with the official policies of the party as declared in a doctrine called the Sawaba doctrine of freedom and liberation, the branch also pursued a anti-corruption campaign.

For about three months, she left Zaria for Abeokuta to meet Funmilayo Kuti after reading about her exploits in Abeokuta in her struggle for womens right in tax matters and the brief exile of Oba Ladapo Ademola as a result.

Back in Zaria, during a political lecture, when the fear of political victimisation abound and many males held their tongues and chose not to speak out politically, she climbed unto the rostrum to speak, challenging her male colleagues. On that same day and a speaker, was a NEPU leader called Gambo Sawaba, it was he who gave her the name Sawabiya, meaning the redeemer, the name was later shortened to the masculine, Sawaba. She then continued with her rising political profile by going door to door to meet with women who were prevented from going to political activities because of the Purdah. Her first political incident with the law occurred in Kano where she was sent to help NEPU with canvassing for women support. As soon as the reports of her activities reached the emir, she was arrested and tried by an Alkali court. She was convicted and sent to prison where a certain warden deemed to be a lesbian was accused of misusing her powers. Sawaba used some of her tricks to get the warden fired. After her release, she went public with the appalling prison conditions but that also got her and a reporter arrested again. She was later asked to leave Kano by the Emir.  Throughout the first republic, she continued with her political activities sometimes suffering humiliating punishments from oppositions thugs. She supported women's right to vote and was elected leader of the women's wing of NEPU. She is a philanthropist and over the years has concentrated her efforts into providing care for homeless children and the poor.

Tunji Braithwaite is a human right lawyer and philanthropy. He his living but iconic and legendary. He was educated at the prestigious C.M.S Grammar School, entering the school’s Preparatory Section in 1946 and completing his education there in 1953.

Tunji Braithwaite has been lawyer and legal advisor to many organisations including trade unions and international companies. Before he diverted his attention to the socio-political malaises plaguing Nigeria, he held the legal retainers of over 20 national and international corporate organisations and foreign missions and embassies in Nigeria.

He has handled notable Cases and Trials which include, State vs Obafemi Awolowo & ORS.

Tunji Braithwaite was one of the lawyers who defended Chief Awolowo in the celebrated Treasonable Felony trial of 1962/63.He was also the lawyer in State vs Olabisi Ajala.

This case brought Braithwaite once more into collision with the prevailing military junta. Despite intimidation by members of the junta their acolytes, Braithwaite remained firm in his determination to defend Ajala  and once again triumphed in the courts.

In February 1977, Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti instructed Tunji Braithwaite to represent the family and get Beko and Fela out of detention as well as take legal steps to redress the barbaric acts of the Obasanjo-led military junta. He fought the case through the High Court to the Supreme Court, leading a few other courageous and well-known lawyers. These were Mr. Alao Aka-Bashorun, Dr. Olu Onogoruwa, Oba Ayodele Kale, Mr. Tunde Sanu and Mr. Femi Delumo. This case was significant in entrenching the fundamental rights law enjoyed by Nigerians presently.

Beko Ransome-Kuti

Dr. Bekolari Ransome-Kuti (2 August 1940 – 10 February 2006) was a Nigerian medical doctor known for his work as a human rights activist.

Ransome-Kuti was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria. His mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti opposed indiscriminate taxation of women by the British colonial government. She helped negotiate Nigerian independence from Britain and is said to have been the first Nigerian woman to drive a car. His father Oladotun Ransome-Kuti was an Anglican priest and founded the Nigeria Union of Teachers. One of his brothers, Fela Kuti, was a famous musician and activist who founded Afrobeat; another, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, was an AIDS campaigner.

Ransome-Kuti returned to Nigeria in 1963 upon obtaining his degree. He was deeply affected by the events of 1977 when soldiers under the orders of Olusegun Obasanjo's military government stormed his brother Fela Kuti's nightclub, destroyed his medical clinic and killed his mother. He became chairman of the Lagos branch of the Nigerian Medical Association and its national deputy, campaigning against the lack of drugs in hospitals.

In 1984, Fela was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison by the government of General Muhammadu Buhari. Ransome-Kuti was also jailed, and his medical association was banned. He was released in 1985 when Buhari was deposed by General Ibrahim Babangida; Babangida then invited him to participate in the government.

Ransome-Kuti helped to form Nigeria's first human rights organization, the Campaign for Democracy, which in 1993 opposed the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. In 1995, a military tribunal sentenced him to life in prison for bringing the mock trial of Olusegun Obasanjo to the attention of the world.^[3] He was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and freed in 1998 following the death of Sani Abacha.

Ransome-Kuti died 10 February 2006, at approximately 11:20 P.M. at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Lagos, Nigeria at the age of 65 from complications of lung cancer.