ROOTS: Born in Lagos September 17, 1933 into a Christian family of Mr. & Mrs. Isaac Adesoye Braithwaite. Grandfather, Rev. I. Braithwaite, was the first missionary to open-up Ijebu-Epe axis of Western Nigeria to Christianity. He founded and built the first Anglican Parish, indeed the first-ever Christian Congregation in Epe, the St. Michaels Anglican Church in 1840.
SCHOOLS:
Primary Education: St. David’s Primary School, Lagos and St. Paul’s Breadfruit School, Lagos 1936-1945.
Secondary Education: CMS Grammar School, Lagos 1946-1953 from Preparatory class to School Cert.
Kennington College, London 1956-1958 for “A” levels.
Entered Lincoln’s Inn London, Autumn 1958 and graduated Barrister, Lincoln’s Inn, London 1960: called to the English Bar and signed the Rolls of Barristers, London February 1961.
Enrolled Barrister & Solicitor, Supreme Court of Nigeria, March 1961.
MARITAL: Dr. Braithwaite is married to Dr. (Mrs.) Grace Simisola Braithwaite (nee Falade) a medical practitioner. They have 5 children (2 sons: 3 daughters) all professionals in law and medicine.
PROFESSIONAL RECORD: Established Tunji Braithwaite & Co. March 1961
In law practice since then, till date, has been lawyer to many organisations including trade unions and international companies. He was the lawyer who incorporated the giant Civil Engineering Company, Julius Berger Construction Company in Nigeria and remained the company’s retained lawyer for many years. He travels widely and has attended many international conferences on “Human Rights” and “International Relations”. Amnesty International commended Dr. Braithwaite as a Lawyer in 1977 “noting and commending his heroic efforts in the defence of civil rights in Nigeria”.
A very prominent trial lawyer with a wide range of experience in litigation, civil liberty and commercial law. At the peak of his professional practice, just before he diverted his considerable energies to the challenges of revolutionary politics, thrown up by the wrecked expectations of the Nigerian people by their backward, neo-colonial and visionless leaders of sorts, he held the legal retainers of over 20 major national and international companies and a number of foreign Embassies in Nigeria. These include Swiss Airline (it was Braithwaite who got this Airline their landing rights in Nigeria, in the period 1968/74). BASF; Hoechst (two German Chemical Conglomerates); Witt & Busch Co., Universal Co. (Nig.) Ltd, The Oro Development Community; Schroeder Electronics.
Dr. Braithwaite still conducts cases in Court and is right now engaged in a major environmental case involving a Bank to expose the total disregard with impunity for environmental issues and law in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos State.
POST GRADUATE AND CONTINUING EDUCATION: Defended his PH.D thesis in Law at Columbia Pacific, California (where he had enrolled, 1984) in 1986, from
where he wrote his landmark book, The Jurisprudence of the Living Oracles – an authority in Jurisprudence,
approved as textbook in many top Universities worldwide.
POLITICS : He founded the Nigeria Advance Party NAP, in 1978, the first-ever truly Revolutionary Socialist Party in Nigeria purposed to wipe out the rats and mosquitoes parasiting the masses’ resources in the land. He contested Presidential Elections 1983 alongside, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe, Chief Awolowo, Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Alhaji Waziri, but the corruption in the Nigerian elections, ensured he was kept away from governance. Hear what Professor Eme Awa, a renowned Professor of Political Science says about Braithwaite in his book, Emancipation of AFRICA page 99:
“………. The impact they had made and the heritage left by the deceased among then still fires the imagination of many intellectuals and political activists”
“………. In Nigeria a host of intelligentsia have espoused socialism and engaged in practical activity. The latest attempt, perhaps the most sanguine one came in 1983 elections. Then, Tunji Braithwaite, a lawyer and multi-millionaire, launched a socialist political party, the Nigeria Advance Party (NAP), which proposed, if elected into power, to introduce practical Marxian socialism into Nigeria. Braithwaite carried out a considerable amount of social mobilisation among the middle and lower classes. His party contested the elections within the framework of the decayed political system and failed to win. That Braithwaite could put so much energy and his personal wealth into the quest for a new social order in Nigeria is symptomatic of the potentiality of the hard-core intellectual and professional groups for action to salvage Africa from her present disabilities. His experience underpins our contention that the attempt to use the ballot box meaningfully must be preceded by a revolutionary transformation of the society and the political system”
……… Eme Awa, 1996
Dr. Braithwaite has been twice invited into the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, both of which he declined. The first was in 1983, by President Shehu Shagari, and the second was in 1985, by the Babangida’s military Junta, who sent General Mohammed Gusau to Braithwaite “to be prepared to join their junta, as the Prime Minister to President Babangida”. Braithwaite flatly rejected Babangida’s overture (suffice to say that he knew Babangida well enough to spurn his overtures).
April 1990, Babangida in the turbulence of the Gideon Okar’s coup, sent a platoon of armed troops to Braithwaite’s residence at the Beulah, “to shoot at sight”, any resistance to his troops and arrest Braithwaite.
He was arrested and carried by the soldiers to their barracks where he was locked-up and guarded by soldiers for a period of 21/2 months, even when he had to be moved to an hospital. Babangida’s warped reason for this was that Braithwaite’s public stand and observations against him must have indirectly “inspired” the coup – perceived as a christian coup – against him.
Moreover, Braithwaite had made a statement condemning the Junta’s rush to their “Kangaroo” trial for the sole purpose of shedding blood in reprisal.
However, after the 21/2 months incarceration, Babangida, sent his Chief of Intelligence Staff to apologise to Braithwaite for “their mistake”.
ABACHA CHALLENGE: At the time when all political leaders would not dare challenge the tyrant General Abacha in his self-perpetuation bid in the government of Nigeria, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite was the first of the two Nigerians who stood up to Abacha. (the other was Alhaji M. D. Yusuf, former Inspector-General of Police). Braithwaite’s case challenging the rigged Primaries favouring Abacha was pending at the Supreme Court when the tyrant died.
NATIONAL CONFERENCE: Dr. Braithwaite was the Elder Statesman chosen by the Federal Government to represent Lagos State in the 2014 Abuja National Conference to fashion a new constitution for Nigeria.
THE BODY OF CHRIST : Dr. Braithwaite has always been very active in the Church. A diocesan Lay Reader: he was together with his wife elected a lay-reader in the early sixties. He has been representing the Parish of St. Paul’s at Synod, since 1968 when he was the Vicar’s Warden.
He was in 1997 chosen the Chairman of the Organising Committee for the First-ever Carnival for CHRIST by the then entire single Diocese of Lagos (Anglican Communion) his secretary on the Committee was the then Provost of the Cathedral, Very Revd. Dr. ’Segun Okubadejo, now Bishop in Oyo State. The 1997 unprecedented Carnival for CHRIST brought out all the Anglicans in Lagos State and the environs in their millions, in floats, parades and bus loads of singing and joyful faithfuls congregating at Tafawa Balewa Square, in Lagos in demonstration of the numerical strength of the Anglican christians in the State. The Anglicans were joined in solidarity by some of the new generation of churches.
Dr. Braithwaite remains an itinerant disseminator of the gospel as he accepts invitations from different christian denominations to preach the gospel.
In 2005, he again chaired the committee for the launch of the book on St. Paul’s Breadfruit at the Muson Centre, Lagos which was so successful, it raked in N20million cash from various donors including governors, traditional Rulers and others.
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