Lawyer Known as Conscience Of Nigeria

Gani Fawehinmi, a human rights lawyer who challenged generations of military and civilian rulers in his native Nigeria and who was considered by supporters and foes alike the conscience of his nation, died Sept. 5 in Lagos of lung cancer. He was 71.

Without holding political office or serving in his country's powerful military, Mr. Fawehinmi became one of the most respected leaders in Nigeria since its independence from Great Britain in 1960. He transcended his country's complex web of ethnic and religious factions to advocate for a united Nigeria and became a driving force behind the introduction of democratic elections to his homeland in 1999.

Known throughout his country simply as "Gani," Mr. Fawehinmi faced continual harassment from the authorities. He was arrested more than 30 times and took to keeping a bag packed with personal items in case he should be thrown in jail. He was frequently beaten, his passport was seized, his home was searched, his office was ransacked and his family was threatened. On one occasion, his law library -- at 300,000 volumes, the largest in Nigeria -- was set on fire.

Mr. Fawehinmi was a master of courtroom maneuvering and was considered Nigeria's foremost lawyer. Among his countless legal battles, he questioned exorbitant payments to former heads of state, challenged the Nigerian central bank for devaluing the currency and protested increases in fuel prices and school fees.

"I am proud to be a confrontationist," he once said.

"This was really a rare human being," Walter C. Carrington, former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, said in an interview last week. "The guy was absolutely incorruptible. He was certainly respected by all, even by some of his strongest opponents. My own view is that if they were ever to give a posthumous Nobel Prize, Gani is the person who ought to get it."

In 1994, despite a national decree forbidding new political parties, Mr. Fawehinmi formed the National Conscience Party and was promptly jailed by operatives of Nigerian strongman Gen. Sani Abacha. A year later, Mr. Fawehinmi defended the writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who had been arrested by Abacha's regime. Despite international outcry, Saro-Wiwa was found guilty of complicity in several murders and was executed in November 1995.

Throughout his life, Mr. Fawehinmi catalogued the personal attacks and indignities visited on him by Nigerian authorities, often resulting in trumped-up charges.

"Continuous imprisonment or even threats of assassination will not deter me from the people's cause," he said after being released from prison in 1990. "The authorities violated my person. . . . What is left for them is to kill me. Whatever they do, I will not give up. I shall continue until I succeed or until I die."

In 1997, when Carrington was leaving Nigeria after four years as U.S. ambassador, armed paramilitary thugs entered the room where his farewell reception was being held.

"They burst in, with guns fully loaded and pointed at the man who was going to introduce me," Carrington recalled. "Gani stood between them, reminded them that their actions were illegal and opened up his shirt and said, 'Shoot me. Shoot me!' " An officer intervened, and the soldiers backed down.

"In the 50 years that I have been involved with Africa," Carrington said, "I would rank Gani as one of the greatest men the continent has produced. I would rank him alongside South Africa's living legends, Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu."

Ganiyu Oyesola Fawehinmi was born April 22, 1938, to a prominent Muslim family in Ondo, Nigeria. His father was a timber titan and philanthropist.

He graduated from Victory College Ikare, a Nigerian Christian college, then spent two years working in the courts of Lagos. In 1961, he began to study law at the University of London, and when his father died in 1963, Mr. Fawehinmi supported himself by cleaning toilets and sweeping floors. Nonetheless, he passed his exams and returned to Nigeria in 1964.

He established a law firm, which came to have 200 employees, wrote 30 books and, since 1986, had published Nigerian Weekly Law Reports, an indispensable legal publication in his country.

He received several international human rights awards, but as recently as 2002, Mr. Fawehinmi was charged with gun-running and "high handedness." A year later, representing his National Conscience Party, he ran a largely symbolic campaign for president, holding rallies in the slums of Lagos.

"I was beaten, tear-gassed, detained, jailed and humiliated," he told his supporters. "I lost my health, but I did not lose my life."

Survivors include his two wives and 14 children.