By

Nurudeen Ogbara  

THE ever-vibrant, cerebral and patriotic nationalist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAM, SAN, LLD called me at the nick of noon precisely at about 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, October 1, 2005. The learned Silk and mentor enthused: "A disaster took place today'! Momentarily, I was dazed! What could have happened, I seemed to have pleaded with the learned chief, to douse the suspense and tension that had already arrested and restrained me. The learned patriot and rare activist, with torrents of tears evidently cascading, gave the bombshell - Alao Aka-Bashorun gave up the ghost some two hours ago!.

I was non-plussed; hit by an intercontinental ballistic missile, a scud missile or if you like, their latest variety! Why, if one may ask? The reasons are many and varied; the occurrence was sudden, too sudden and unexpected. At least not now! That it is coming just a few days after the death of patriotic, youthful and ever-progressive Chima Ubani and that of Bala Usman makes it worrisome and may elicit some curiosity or at some other sphere, it may require interrogation(s).

More importantly, the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Ikeja and Ikorodu branches, in collaboration with the leadership of the CITIZENScentre had agreed and started the plans to honour and immortalise some identified progressives, larger than life and exemplary leaders of the legal profession in Nigeria who are equally socially committed, believed in the rule of law, democracy and good governance. Alao Aka-Bashorun, Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAM, SAN), Chief Babatunde Benson (SAN), were some of the leading lights so pencilled down.

The NBA Ikeja branch on January 15, this year, started the process with Chief Gani Fawehinmi's Annual Lecture. The NBA Ikorodu chapter followed up with the Chief Babatunde Benson Annual Lecture on September 22, 2005. The Chairman, Board of Trustees of the CITIZENScentre, Prof. Ademola Popoola who is also the dean, Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, has just given the final nod to CITIZENScentre yielding the organisation of the proposed Alao Aka-Bashorun Annual Lecture to both the NBA Ikeja and NBA Ikorodu branches in a collaborative manner, given the scope and worldview of the peoples' lawyer and to avoid any reductionist imputation.

In fact, the learned scholar and versatile intellectual urges that the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association should be engaged and brought in to have an integrated honour package for Alao Aka-Bashorun on his 75th birthday come December 5, 2005, at the Nigerian Law School, Lagos Campus, when the national secretariat of the NBA, by the Law School in Victoria Island, Lagos, is to be named after the most cerebral, most aligned, most charismatic, most dynamic, most intrepid and most productive leader of the Bar in Nigeria.

The CITIZENS centre believes that the First Alao Aka-Bashorun Annual Lecture should possibly focus on emerging threats to the rule of law, sustainable democracy and good governance in Nigeria, subject to the concurrence of the leadership of the two branches and other stakeholders. This proposal is still to be considered by the stakeholders when the shocking news came! Hence, the big gasp, astonishment and sense of loss.

It should be said, even if passingly and for record purposes, that long before now, the CITIZENScentre had conceived the idea of publishing a book on Human Rights and Democratic Process in Nigeria: Issues, Challenges and Options (Essays in Honour of Alao Aka- Bashorun). In fact, it had mobilised many stakeholders to pursue the realisation of the idea.

However, one logistic reason or the other stalled the initiative. This might have to be necessarily revived, other things being equal.

For avoidance of doubt, the "Peoples' Lawyer" as Alao Aka-Bashorun was well known and fondly referred to by judges, friends, associates, colleagues, clients, trade unionists, the press and admirers, occupies a pre-eminent place in the legal profession and indeed, in the struggle of Nigerian people to rid the country of the bug of prolonged military dictatorship, myopic and inept leadership and substitute it with a more humane, more visionary and more responsible people-centred leadership.

Alao Aka-Bashorun, lawyer, humanist, farmer, human rights activist extra-ordinaire and distinguished patriot was born in 1931 and raised in Lagos. The 71-year-old ebullient and personable leader of the Bar and die-hard supporter of the late nationalist, Herbert Macualay had his law office known as 'The Peoples' Chambers' situated at No. 22A Jebba Street, Ebute Meta (West) in Lagos which was a haven and refuge of a sort to workers, activists, students, market women, the oppressed, lawyers and humanists.

The jurist started his career as a trade union and peoples' lawyer in the turbulent colonial and postcolonial Nigeria. As a matter of fact, he handled the bulk of trade union briefs and was at home with international law and politics.

An outstanding patriot, a clear-headed intellectual, an articulate and down to earth advocate of human rights, independent judiciary and the Bar, social justice, rule of law and the due process, democracy and allied matters, Alao Aka-Bashorun pursued a degree in Law at the prestigious London School of Economics and Political Science from where he graduated in 1957.

Before then, he had been the secretary-general of the U.A.C African Workers' Union. While in Europe, he was actively involved in the nationalist struggles using the instrumentality/platform of the West African Students' Union (WASU).

Aka- Bashorun, who mixed freely and comfortably with the rich and poor, old and young, became most visible nationally and internationally when he was elected president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in 1987 in an unprecedented landslide electoral victory that ushered in concrete progressive perspectives, enormous goodwill and towering successes for the NBA, the legal profession, the Nigerian society and humanity at large.

Before then, the NBA was directionless; it existed just in name. No programme, no national secretariat and no concrete, coherent activity whatsoever to benefit members or show its relevance to the society. In fact, the NBA was like a personal property of a few lawyers without little or nothing meaningful to show. No meeting was called while identified structures of the body never functioned. The association did not have a secretariat. Private home of the late Chief F.R.A Williams (SAN) was almost everything that symbolised the NBA.

Alao Aka-Bashorun, in collaboration with other progressive lawyers, openly teamed up to clear the miasma and change the unpleasant scenario; they conferred with, challenged and confronted head-long old leadership of the NBA to ensure positive openness, reform, transformation and modernisation.

The legitimate and modernist struggle for the democratisation of the NBA's leadership against the few but well-established conservative "ruling class", unwilling to co-operate, was demanding and elephantine yet change - positive democratic change - was not only desirable but also inevitable. Hence, Alao Aka-Bashorun and other humanist lawyers organised and moved against the old order. This confrontation ultimately culminated into a conference of all Nigerian lawyers summoned for Kaduna.

The choice of Kaduna was strategic as the conservative group was believed to have chosen the venue to frustrate and limit individual levels of participation. The progressive wing, rather than being frustrated, became more energised, more organised and their effort was eventually crowned with the emergency in 1968 of another lawyer, Mr. Peter Thomas as the third president who later died that year, giving way to the election of the fourth president, Chief G. M Boyo (1969 - 1970). Today, the 23rd president of the NBA, Prince Adelanke Odogiyan is on the saddle.

However, Alao Aka-Bashorun was elected the 14th president of the NBA and served for two glorious terms (from 1987 to 1989) - a period that witnessed the highest relevance and effectiveness of the NBA as president of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) during which he rebuilt the Bar association, refocused its activities and endeared it to the people and thirdly, for his pioneering pro-democracy initiatives during which the NBA was at the head of the campaign to rid the country of prolonged military dictatorship. The tenures of Mrs. Priscilla Kuye and Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) remind us all of Alao Aka-Bashorun.

Some of the greatest, unrivalled achievements of Alao Aka-Bashorun's presidency, therefore, include among others;