The family of the founder of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) late Dr Frederick Fasehun, has protested the omission of his name by President Bola Tinubu in the list of June 12 heroes in the presidential Democracy Day address.
The family in a statement by the late OPC founder’s son, Mr. Remi Fasehun, described the omission of the foremost democracy activist in the President’s list as uncharitable, ungrateful and unpardonable.
He said: “The President was a beneficiary of our father’s activism and sacrifice for democracy. Not only were they in the trenches together, Fasehun helped Tinubu to escape into exile.
“In fact, it is on record that, when General Sani Abacha’s squad surrounded Senator Abraham Adesanya residence where they held a meeting, Tinubu mounted the back of Fasehun and jumped the fence to flee into hiding and subsequently 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 Fasehun.
“He was at a point the link between Pa Enahoro-NADECO and NUPENG, the union that played a pivotal role in that struggle. He was thrown into prison several times by the General Sani 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.”
The family 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.
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. Frederick Isiotan Fasehun from any so-called list of June 12 and Democratic Heroes smacks of crass injustice and inexplicable vendetta,” he 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 statement declared.
