Prominent Nigerian lawyer and rights activist Gani Fawehinmi died Saturday after a prolonged battle with cancer, his colleages said. He was 71.

Fawehinmi, a thorn in the flesh of successive Nigerian governments both military and civilian, died in his Ikeja home in Lagos, they said.

"Gani passed on this morning in his residence at Ikeja. We are saddened and devastated by his death," Joe Oke-Odumakin, president of the Campaign for Democracy, told AFP.

Another rights activist Shina Loremikan confirmed the death.

"I was informed by his family that he died early this morning," he said.

Fawehinmi, holder of Nigeria's highest legal title, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), was an author, publisher, philanthropist, social critic, human and civil rights lawyer and politician.

He had been in and out of hospital both at home and abroad for the treatment of cancer in the past few years.

Sapa-AFP

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