Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim

Gbenga Toyosi Olawepo (born 28 June 1965) is a Nigerian human rights activist and businessman.

Olawepo was born in Yelwa, Yauri, present Kebbi State located in Northern Nigeria, on 28 June 1965.

Olawepo started exhibiting leadership qualities in the high school.

In 1984, he was elected President of the Dramatic Society and later appointed Health Prefect at the Cherubim and Seraphim College, Ilorin.

Olawepo was clamped into detention for four months in solitary confinement under the Detention of Persons Decree No. 2 of 1984 as amended.

It was detention without trial.

He was released after an epic legal battle led by his counsel, the late President of the Nigeria Bar Association Alao Aka-Bashorun, and an international campaign co-ordinated by the International Union of Students, World Federation of Democratic Youth, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

In 1986 at Kwara College of Technology, he was elected General-Secretary of the Youth Solidarity on Southern Africa in Nigeria (YUSSAN) and was active in the anti-apartheid movement.

He organised film shows, signature collection to mobilise local and international support against the apartheid regime in South Africa and solidarity support for the courses of the people of Angola, Mozambique and Namibia.

He was a member of the Local Organising Committee of the '’Massive Freedom at 70 Nelson Mandela Concert'’ held at the University Lagos Nigeria.

His involvement in the radical movement became deepened when he was elected Public Relations Officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in July 1988.

This was at a time when the student organisation was defying its ban by the military government.

As the spokesperson of the Nigerian student body he was at the frontline of confrontation with the military authorities.

He spoke about "freedom of association being inalienable and which no military decree can take away," he spoke of the people's right to education and campaigned for return to democratic rule via the constitution of a democratically elected constituent assembly.

Olawepo first was recognized as an anti-apartheid activist; he and three other students' leaders of the University of Lagos were clamped into the over-crowded Nigeria Police cell in April 1989 after an anti-apartheid protest.

The military regime that was growing increasingly repressive and intolerant of freedom of expression in Nigeria then ordered the detention of the student activist.

The Education Editor of Guardian Express – Joe Idika- published an exclusive report on the plight of the quartet in what was an exposé on the deplorable condition under which detainees are held in the Nigerian Police facilities.

The report was also a story of the visit of Margaret Thatcher over her government's pro-apartheid policy, which the student-labour protest was opposing.

In May–June 1989, he was part of the leadership of the anti-SAP and pro-democracy uprising organised by the National Association of Nigerian Students [www.whirledbank.org/development/sap].

This revolt was nationwide and gained support across regional and ethnic boundaries; it also received international attention as it went simultaneously with the student protest at Tiananmen Square, Beijing and the pro-democracy revolt in Eastern Europe.

The military regime dubbed it a '’civilian coup'’ and reacted to it with an admixture of palliative concession and brutal force.

To suppress the protest, the military government deployed riot tanks, police helicopters and riot mobile policemen shooting life ammunition against protesters.

At the end of the uprising, over two hundred people were estimated to have been killed by the police, a huge number wounded and some student activists detained.

The Amnesty International declared him a '’Prisoner of conscience'’ in 1989.

His case and that of Gbenga Komolafe adjudicated on by Justice Tajudeen Odunowo became the Loco classicos in Nigeria's legal history as it was the first time a court would order the release of a detainee under the draconian Detention of Persons Security Decree No.2.

After his release from detention in December 1989 and graduation from the University of Lagos, he continued to be active in national and international affairs.

In 1990, he was appointed National Administrative-Secretary of the Committee for Defence of Human Rights where he worked briefly and doubled in the same role for the National Consultative Forum-a group founded by human rights activists led by Aka-Bashorun and nationalist politicians like late RBK Okafor, Kola Balogun, late Mbadiwe, Mahmoud Waziri and Alhaji Tanko Yakassai.

The group, National Consultative Forum (NCF), set for itself the objective of organising a national conference as a platform to democratise and restructure the Nigerian federation.

The NCF attracted a section of former Nigerian '’Super Permanent Secretaries'’ into its rank led by Alison Ayida and Tayo Akpata.

Olawepo, who succeeded Femi Ojudu now managing director of '’The News magazine,'’ who had come on sabbatical from his African Concord job, worked effectively with the General-Secretary, late Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, in manning the secretariat.

After Olawepo graduated from the University of Lagos, he was confronted by an immediate problem: what to do with his future.

The university authorities under the influence of the military authorities who were seeking to frustrate him had seized his certificate.

The implication of this in a society that placed great premium on certificates rather than skills was that he could neither find a job as a graduate in the private sector nor in the public sector.

This also meant he could not seek post-graduate studies.

The above challenge forced Olawepo into private business in 1991 after the stint at CDHR.

He was interested in putting his skills as a trained mass-communicator to trade but he again had to dance round the provision of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relation decree and the Advertising Practitioners Council- both required his certificate to qualify for registration to practice advertising or public relation.

The former student activist was now under intense pressure to beg the authorities by family members and relations who feel his future is now ruined especially when he is out of office and no one now seem to be speaking about his case.

However, Gbenga refused to beg his tormentors but took it in his strides.

He saw an opportunity out of the obstacle after reading a thousand-page books on political communication in America and the United Kingdom.

He arrived at a decision to establish a pioneer outfit in political communications, thus circumventing the limitation imposed by the Advertising and Public Relation Law.