Gani Fawehinmi fought to open Nigeria’s political space, Uba Sani says

Gani Fawehinmi helped keep Nigeria’s political space open by challenging restrictions on political associations, Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani said at the presentation of a book about their relationship.

Speaking in Kaduna on Saturday, Sani recalled Fawehinmi’s legal struggle against stringent conditions imposed by the Independent National Electoral Commission on associations seeking registration. Many human rights and pro-democracy activists became disillusioned at the time, he said, but Fawehinmi refused to let frustration become despair.

Sani said Fawehinmi and former Kaduna governor Balarabe Musa took the dispute to court. The legal battle lasted more than two years before the Court of Appeal ruled in their favour in 2002. INEC appealed, but the Supreme Court also ruled for them in January 2003. Sani said the judgments opened political space and paved the way for more political parties.

“Democracy has a history, and every freedom has a cost,” Sani said. He urged activists, politicians and academics to remember Nigerians who fought and sacrificed for democratic freedoms, saying many people who exercise political association rights today may not know how difficult those freedoms were to secure.

Sani also described Fawehinmi as a committed pan-Nigerian who supported empowerment regardless of region, ethnicity, religion or social standing. He said education ranked among Fawehinmi’s deepest convictions and recalled helping coordinate the Gani Fawehinmi Scholarship Foundation’s programme in Northern Nigeria. Sani said he persuaded Fawehinmi to establish a major scholarship programme for talented but poor university students, which awarded scholarships to more than 1,000 students.

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Democracy has a history, and every freedom has a cost.