Posted by By CHRISTIAN ITA on
There doesn't seem to be a let up in the row between former Information Minister, Chief Alex Akinyele and his childhood friend, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, with the declaration by the former that the renowned Lagos lawyer suffers from 'diarrhea of the mouth."
There doesn't seem to be a let up in the row between former Information Minister, Chief Alex Akinyele and his childhood friend, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, with the declaration by the former that the renowned Lagos lawyer suffers from 'diarrhea of the mouth."
The row was sparked off Monday when Akinyele took exceptions to the contents of Gani's open letter to President Olusegun Obasanjo on the death of his wife, Stella during a cosmetic surgery in Spain.
Never known to run away from a fight, Gani had fired back by branding Akinyele a 'political jobber, economic psycophant and running dog of the establishment."
But speaking with Sunday Sun at the weekend, Akinyele, a childhood friend of Gani, not only denied the allegation of being a political jobber but also tore into the legal icon in a way nobody has ever done.
While insisting that he would not let Gani 'drag me into the indecent condescension of name-calling," he said, 'name-calling belongs to terrorists and miscreants.
There is nothing decent about name-calling.
'Do I look like a running dog? If Obasanjo has been the president since 1999, have you heard my name in any appointment? Have I applied for any appointment? I am not anybody in every government. What I want you to understand is that Gani is suffering from diarrhea of the mouth. I want to maintain my integrity and dignity by not saying so much. But I challenge him to a public debate to demonstrate who has more integrity."
He threatened that Gani would be the worse for it 'If he moves me to the point of saying what people do not know. I shall be very sorry for him."
Reminded that he was once quoted as saying Gani was an honest man, the former chairman of the National Sports Commission fired back: 'When I said he was honest, not honest in that way. I am saying that of all the professional agitators, that he is the one you cannot buy. Gani is far from being honest. When it comes to sincerity of purpose as a professional agitator to whom nothing is good, the only thing that is good is that which comes from him. He does not see anything good in anything that is good."
He said contrary to Gani's claim, 'There is no reason why anybody can attack my integrity. I had worked in the Customs until the point of retirement. I retired with honour. A national send-off party was held for me at Ikoyi Hotel. It has no precedence. I was Minister of Information; I was Executive Chairman of National Sports Commission. My name was never linked either then or known with any kind of fraud or anything improper."
The Ondo high chief then challenged Gani to 'take a public office and let us see how he would fare. I will challenge him to a public debate where we will weigh him on the scale and I will be weighed on the scale and let us see who is the very friend of integrity among the two of us.
'Name-calling doesn't bother me because those people who are very senior to him, he has called them names. Were you not shocked that Chief Gani Fawehinmi, who called General Buhari all sorts of names, condescended to go into a political partnership with him because he is a die-hard political opportunist? Did he not form a political party here? What was the result? He and I belong to the same ward (in Ondo town), he did not garner up to 200 votes. He thinks people don't know but people know.
'What I really know about him, if he has forgotten, I don't want to say it. Why I don't want to say it is that people would say ‘ These are the very famous people in Ondo, so this man can be this and this man can be this?'"
Despite saying that, Akinyele told a story, which he said, would provide an insight into the life of Gani.
His words: 'He (Gani) did say that if he were the chief judge, he would jail that lawyer who accused the chief judge of bribe. That is the type of chief judge you would have had if he (Gani) had become a chief judge. That statement of his means a lot. This is somebody whose temperament is worse than the temperament of a very hungry tiger.
'Let me tell you an experience. When the government seized his passport, he was crying that he was ill, he couldn't travel. He came to my house crying. I went to the department of military intelligence and I spoke to them that ‘ In the interest of the image of this administration, let us give him the passport so that he can go and cure himself of whatever ailment he has.'
'I collected the passport and I took it to him. The following day, the ungrateful…(unprintable) did say that, ‘ Yes, this is my passport, it was brought to me by one of their messengers. Was that fair to me? This was under IBB."
Tracing their disagreements to when he accepted the ministerial job from the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida, he said the prominent human rights advocate had gone to town then, saying 'All the nonsense he said. But look at him, this…(unprintable), this avaricious man, when all the lawyers in Nigeria said they were not going to court to pursue any case against anybody under Buhari, he alone went out because of the fantastic money involved to defend Colonel Obasa. Have you forgotten? Was that not why he became ostracized by the Nigerian Bar Association? The Nigerian Bar Association which he is a member, has he ever served the association and in what capacity?
'I was one-time Secretary General of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations. Then, I became the two-time president of the institute and the highest position a PR man can hold at the end of being president of the institute is to be Minister for Information for a country. What has he ever been in this country? And which government has Gani ever praised?"
Akinyele defended his criticism of the open letter the human rights lawyer wrote the president on the death of his wife.
According to him, 'I have every reason to defend President Obasanjo. What happened to him is very serious, any animal will sympathise with him but Gani has never been loved nor has he ever loved. I understand he has three wives, which of them does he love? If he had loved any of his wives the way President Obasanjo loved his wife, I am sure he would have sympathised. No animal, no matter how wicked can go ahead to attack Obasanjo in his current situation.
'We were here some 15 years ago when he was abusing all the Obas in Yorubaland as if he was not born in a Yorubaland. Is that the type of man to lead this country when he said he wanted to be president? He is dictatorial and autocratic. He can't be a leader.
'Since Gani and I came back from our studies abroad in 1956, what government has he praised, who are his friends in the Nigerian Bar Association, who are his friends in the civil rights organisations?"
Akinyele claimed that a man such as Gani 'has no moral locus standi to attack me at all. I am a fine gentleman and the people love me. I married my wife, Lady Yvonne for 30 years, six months and some few days, I did not speak any rough language to my wife. I wonder if my friend can make a similar claim.
'If there is anything he wants to say about my past, let him go on and say it.
He was merely dealing on semantics. When you say a man is a jolly fellow, a clown, it is a question of semantics because there are two categories of people: the melancholic and the cheerful. I belong to the cheerful. You can say a cheerful man is a clown, you can call a cheerful man whatever name but basically, a cheerful man lives to create and to extend joy to other people."