The renowned human rights lawyer, Bamidele Aturu, is dead. He was aged 49.
Aturu, reputed for his human rights activism and constitutionalism, died on Wednesday evening after a brief illness in a Lagos hospital.
He came to prominence as a fighter against power abuses when, as a member of the National Youth Service Corps, he refused to shake the hand of a military administrator of Niger State, Col. Lawan Gwadabe in 1988 during his NYSC passing out parade declaring that the military had caused great harm to the democratic aspirations of Nigerians.
The late lawyer was one of the founding members of Democratic Alternative, a political group committed to pursuing deep-rooted democratic principles and holding those in power accountable to the governed.
Aturu studied law at the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University and devoted much of his legal practice to representing marginalized or oppressed individuals and groups.
The late activist was nominated as a member of the ongoing national confab, but he renounced his membership, arguing that the conference was designed to achieve nothing.
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