By Adewale Banjo
Estate of Dr. Frederick Fasehun has protested the omission by President Bola Tinubu of Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) founder in the list of June 12 heroes contained in the presidential Democracy Day address.
In a statement, yesterday, in Lagos by the late OPC founder’s son, Remi Fasehun, the family described the omission of the foremost democracy activist in the president’s list as uncharitable, ungrateful and unpardonable.
The younger Fasehun said his father and Tinubu were in the trenches together, before he finally escaped into exile.
“Several people, who escaped from the country into exile and joined NADECO abroad, including Pa Anthony Enahoro, were personally taken by boat and bush paths, through the NADECO Route, by Dr. Fasehun.
“He was at a point the link between Pa Enahorao-NADECO and Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, the union that played a pivotal role in that struggle.
“He was thrown into prison several times by the Abacha junta, in Kirikiri, Ilorin and Kuje. At the infamous Inter Centre in Ikoyi Cemetery, he was held incommunicado for several months, an experience that inflicted immense damage on him physically and psychologically, to the extent of leaving his vision impaired for life.
“His family and businesses paid dearly for his struggle for democracy. Today, his wife and children still pay the price of their father’s sacrifice to birth the democracy Nigeria has today.”
They said Fasehun’s hospitality business, Century Hotel, as well as his Besthope Hospital in Lagos, were today a shadow of the flourishing enterprises they used to be before he threw himself into the struggle for June 12.
University of Aberdeen-trained Medical Doctor and Africa’s first Acupuncturist, Dr. Fasehun, died on December 1, 2018 in Lagos at the age of 83.
Furthermore, according to the statement, Fasehun specifically founded the socio-cultural group, Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), in 1994, as a vehicle for wresting democracy from the sit-tight military junta.
“To ignore such an inimitable icon as Dr. Fasehun from the list of June 12 and Democratic Heroes smacks of crass injustice and inexplicable vendetta,” his Estate said.
It recalled that in the struggle for June 12, hundreds of OPC members paid the supreme price, through extra-judicial killings by overzealous and ill-advised security agents.
“We only hope that in the name of fairness and justice, the president will correct this anomaly and place Dr. Fasehun in Nigeria’s democratic Hall of Fame as he very well deserves.
“Truth should not be sacrificed on the altar of politics, however. Dr. Fasehun should be given his well-deserved historical recognition as a true Nigerian Hero of Democracy,” the Estate said.
While acknowledging that leading a huge nation like Nigeria could be a Herculean task, the Fasehuns urged Tinubu to put welfare packages in place to ameliorate the unprecedented poverty, inflation and insecurity bedevilling citizens.