Human Rights Activist & Lawyer Barr Bamidele Aturu Dies At 49.

One of Nigeria’s foremost human rights lawyers, Bamidele Aturu, is dead.Aturu is 

, known for his commitment to championing human rights and constitutionalism, died in a Lagos hospital on Wednesday evening after a brief illness.Associates of the deceased confirmed his death.

The late lawyer was one of the founding members of a political group committed to pursuing deep-rooted democratic principles and holding those in power accountable to the governed – Democratic Alternative.

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.

Mr Aturu studied law at the University of Ife, and devoted much of his legal practice to representing marginalised or oppressed individuals and groups.

He 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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