LAGOS -A Don, Prof. Akin Ajisegiri, said on Saturday that the only way to remember the late legal luminary, social activist and philanthropist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, was to sustain his ideas.
Ajisegiri, Dean of the College of Engineering, University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, spoke with newsmen on phone.
He said although Gani was an icon, no icon lasted forever except his ideas.
“The glory is in keeping the ideas of the icon alive and not in the demise of the initiator of the ideology,’’ Ajisegiri said.
He said any celebration of Gani’s death must focus on the fight against educational backwardness and corruption in government.
“Well meaning people must recall Gani’s fight against economic backwardness of the poor, human rights abuses, government intimidation and creating an egalitarian society.
“These are his ideals for the Nigerian state and can only remain relevant as Gani’s philosophy, if they are continually fought for by the activists amongst us,’’ he said.
He claimed that the manner in which the government was managing the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) was inculcating the wrong message in the youth.
“Every child comes to the world with a blank mind and it is what he or she sees that gets registered as the right way, the norm and the proper angle to see issues.
“When a government treats the best brains of its society in the universities the way it is currently doing, it is indirectly indoctrinating the wrong message about values to the growing ones,’’ he said.
According to him, it is dangerous to teach the youth that hard work cannot get them the best in life or become models of what is good to others.
“Nigerian lecturers are the best in their fields and in their society, yet they get this kind of shabby treatment from their government.
“What then will anybody wish to emulate them for?’’ he asked.
He urged the government to avoid sending the wrong message by handling the ASUU situation with care.
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