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•How Fawehinmi’s four-year mentorship of Kaduna gov shapes Sani’s policies in health, education, others –Basirat, late Fawehinmi’s daughter
From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
For four years, the young Comrade Uba Sani lived under the roof of Nigeria’s foremost human rights activist and pro-democracy campaigner, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi. It was an experience that his daughter, Basirat Fawehinmi-Biobaku, a lawyer, says helped shape the man who would eventually become Governor of Kaduna State.
More than three decades after their paths crossed in the turbulent aftermath of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Fawehinmi-Biobaku believes her father’s influence on Sani has endured.
According to her, the late Fawehinmi gave his young protégé a simple but profound charge: never forget the poor and vulnerable if he ever had the opportunity to serve Nigeria.
“Uba, if you ever have the opportunity to serve our country, Nigeria, in any capacity, make sure you never ever forget the masses of our people,” Fawehinmi told him.
She made the disclosure on Saturday, September 5, in Kaduna at the presentation of her book, Gani Fawehinmi and Uba Sani: A Tale Of Mentor and Mentee, where she recounted the unusual relationship between her father and the young activist from Kaduna.
Fawehinmi-Biobaku said Sani’s relationship with her father began in 1993, following the annulment of the June 12 election, when Sani, then a 22-year-old activist, travelled from Kaduna to Lagos with other young activists, including Dr Yunusa Tanko.
“After the annulment of June 12, Comrade Uba Sani, with some young students from Kaduna Polytechnic—Dr. Yunusa Tanko inclusive—came down to Lagos by night bus to meet my father,” she recalled.
According to her, the young activists arrived Lagos the following day and went to Fawehinmi’s chambers at Ikeja, where about 10 radical activists were waiting to see the human rights lawyer.
Among them was Sani, who was chosen to speak on behalf of the group.
Her father, she said, was immediately struck by the young man’s composure and conviction.
“He started to speak. According to my father, he was shocked, because though he was soft-spoken, he was very firm,” she said.
Fawehinmi then asked the young activists why they had come.
“He asked him a simple question: ‘You’re here; why are you here?’ And he said, ‘We are here, sir, because we want to fight for the heart of Nigeria.’”
When Fawehinmi asked what they meant by fighting for the “heart of Nigeria,” Sani reportedly replied that the annulment of the election amounted to a violation of Nigerians’ fundamental rights.
“He said, ‘Sir, they have just annulled the fairest and freest election in this country. That is robbing us of our fundamental human rights,’” she recalled.
Fawehinmi, known for his readiness to confront successive military governments, was apparently determined to know whether the young activists understood the risks involved.
He instructed his assistant to bring out his detention bag, which was always packed in anticipation of arrest.
“My father asked his assistant, ‘Bring my detention bag—it’s always packed. Show them the contents of my detention bag, and let them decide now if they will come with me wholeheartedly, or at this point, call it a day,’” Fawehinmi-Biobaku said.
Sani, she recalled, did not hesitate.
“Comrade Uba Sani, just 22 years and six months old, said, ‘Sir, I’m ready to face the consequences.’”
That decision, according to Fawehinmi-Biobaku, marked the beginning of a relationship that went beyond activism.
After the activists joined Fawehinmi at a rally and returned safely to his chambers, the human rights lawyer made an unexpected offer to Sani.
“There and then, my father said, ‘Uba, you will live in my house.’”
Sani subsequently spent four years living with the Fawehinmi family in Lagos.
“Together, they lived very peacefully. Comrade Uba Sani lived in our house for four good years,” she said.
The arrangement meant that the young activist became deeply integrated into the family’s daily life.
“Every morning, he had breakfast with Gani. They went to the office together, had lunch, dinner,” she added.
Fawehinmi-Biobaku said her father regarded Sani as more than a young activist under his tutelage.
“He was often referred to as Gani’s son. He was very, very close to my father,” she said.
She recalled how her father described Sani to her during one of their conversations.
“My father said, ‘You know, this guy is very sincere and honest. He will follow me everywhere.’”
The closeness was also evident during rallies and other activities. According to Fawehinmi-Biobaku, Sani was often entrusted with her father’s personal bag, which contained his medication.
“And every time they were out for a rally, he would say, ‘Give my bag to Uba.’ And in that bag was his hypertensive drugs,” she said.
For Fawehinmi-Biobaku, the relationship was not simply a story about a political activist mentoring another activist. It was, in retrospect, a relationship whose influence she believes can be seen in Sani’s approach to governance.
She said that, decades after receiving her father’s advice, Governor Sani has demonstrated that he has not forgotten the people at the bottom of society.
“What Gani told young Comrade Uba 30 years ago, he has lived what Gani advised him to do. Mentor and mentee,” she said.
Fawehinmi-Biobaku said she personally travelled around Kaduna State and spoke with residents before reaching her conclusion about the governor’s performance.
“Having been in the state for three days, I asked them to drive me around. What’s happening? What’s happening? I talked to people on the street,” she said.
She highlighted education, healthcare, infrastructure and peace-building as areas in which she believes the governor has followed the principles instilled in him by her father.
On education, she said the administration had expanded access by constructing schools and classrooms and providing free education from primary to secondary school levels.
“Comrade Uba Sani, in terms of education, you don’t have children on the streets. There’s free education, one of the free states in this country,” she said.
She also praised the administration’s healthcare interventions, particularly its efforts to make primary healthcare more accessible to ordinary residents. And in the area of health, if someone is in the class of the less privileged, you are treated free,” she said.
Infrastructure and rural development, she added, had also improved connectivity and movement of agricultural produce.
She recalled visiting a community where residents had waited for decades for a bridge.
“I’ve forgotten the name of the village, where they did not see a bridge for 30 years. Now they can move, there’s easy transportation,” she said.
But beyond physical infrastructure and social services, Fawehinmi-Biobaku identified peace and political inclusion as perhaps the most important contribution of the Sani administration.
“Without peace, we can’t do anything,” she said, while commending what she described as the governor’s efforts to unite northern and southern Kaduna.
She also singled out Sani’s choice of a Christian from Southern Kaduna as his deputy governor as an example of what she considered an inclusive political approach.
“I’m not a politician, but I must speak on this: choice of deputy governor, a Christian from Southern Kaduna,” she said.
“Governor Comrade Uba Sani, if Gani Fawehinmi were alive today, he would have been very proud of you.”
Her tribute extended beyond her late father to her mother, Mrs. Ganiat Fawehinmi, who, she said, remained proud of Sani.
“My mother, Mrs. Ganiat Fawehinmi, who used to cook for you in the house, is extremely proud of you,” she said.
According to her, her mother, now 77, was unable to attend the book presentation but sent a message to the governor.
“She sent me to tell you: Gani lives on, we know. Uba, well done. In Comrade Uba Sani, Gani definitely lives on,” she said.
For Fawehinmi-Biobaku, the book was written not merely to celebrate a personal relationship, but to preserve an important chapter in Nigeria’s history.
“The purpose of writing this book; Gani Fawehinmi and Uba Sani: A Tale of Mentor and Mentee, is to set the history straight,” she said.
She lamented what she described as Nigeria’s weak reading culture and the tendency for important historical accounts to be passed down orally.
“In Nigeria, we sometimes don’t have a reading culture, and we only depend on what we’ve been told from our mothers and grandmothers and fathers and grandfathers,” she said.
“But it’s high time in the history of Nigeria when people do good things, for us to make it public.”
The author said the photographs and accounts contained in the book offer evidence of the bond between the two men, from political struggles to courtroom battles and other engagements.
“There are pictures in the book that speak to their closeness. In the INEC house case, they’d have their tête-à-tête chats. In the other places they went to, they were always together,” she said.
As she brought her address to a close, Fawehinmi-Biobaku returned to the language of activism that defined her father’s generation and the formative years of the young Uba Sani.
She asked the gathering to join her in singing her father’s favourite solidarity song.
“Solidarity forever! Solidarity forever! Solidarity forever, for we shall always fight for our right!”
Then came the familiar activist refrain:
“Forward ever! Backward never! For the struggle, for the struggle, for Nigeria, there is victory!”
And with that, the daughter of the late human rights icon offered perhaps her clearest summation of the story she had come to tell: that the activist who once walked into Gani Fawehinmi’s chambers as a 22-year-old radical from Kaduna had carried the lessons of his mentor into public office, and, in her view, had kept faith with the people her father spent his life defending
