[Obituary] Mohammed Fawehinmi: Wheelchair-bound activist who once dreamt of becoming army general

Punch

Born on February 21, 1969 while his activist father, Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), was in detention, Mohammed Fawehinmi originally planned to join the Nigerian Army and rise to the position of general; but this was not to be.

Mohammed told The PUNCH in an interview in 2018 that he had approached his father to inform him of his plan to enlist in the military but his activist father, who had been detained several times by the military, gave him the beating of his life.

He said, “I wanted to become an army general. I had three uncles in the army. Two of them were captains while one was a major. I loved the uniform and personality of military men, being like them was just what I wanted for myself.

“When I was 14, we were given forms in school for the Nigerian Defence Academy. I hurriedly filled mine and took it to my father for him to sign; I never knew I had courted trouble. Till he died, I don’t think he had ever been that angry. He said I wanted to go and join the people that were throwing him in jail all the time. He said I wanted to join those who wanted to kill him. He said that it was better he killed me before I joined his enemies.

“It took four senior lawyers to hold him down that day. One of them was OAR Ogunde, a senior advocate, Mr. Tayo Oyetibo, Mike Philips and one other person. I had to run away from the scene as fast as I could and managed to jump the fence before tearing the form. I thought he had forgotten about everything but I was surprised when he woke me up with the cane at about 2.30am the next morning. He dealt with me thoroughly that day.”

Mohammed eventually travelled to the United Kingdom to study law and wanted to become a business administrator but as the eldest son, Gani was eager for him to return home. He was eventually called to the Nigerian bar in 1998.

The young lawyer had already begun stepping into his father’s shoes as is very common with many lawyers. However, he was dealt a devastating blow by the vicissitudes of fate in the evening of September 23, 2003 when he had an accident that would damage his spinal cord and render him wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life.

He said, “I was coming from the chambers at night on the evening of September 23, 2003. The accident happened around 9.48pm. I used to stay at Ajao Estate then and I usually took the airport route to connect Ikeja. It was a Mercedes E320. By the time I got to the toll gate, I bought call card and prayed, something I had never done before because when I was at that place, I didn’t usually stop.

“I thereafter turned to link the express, as I approached a popular filling station on the axis, my car skidded off the road and leaped into the place. As the car landed, I tried to apply the brakes but it wasn’t responding. Eventually, the outlet where they used to check for petrol gauge stopped the vehicle. The airbag from the front came out and pinned me to the seat while the one from the side shifted me and broke my neck. After about one-and-a-half min…