By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
Honourable Justice Emmanuel Obioma Ogwuegbu was part of a generation in which judging was a deservedly elevated calling. In return, society honoured people like him with the honorific “My Lord”, an acknowledgement that they were called to a job that is truly divine. Today, the senior-most lawyers publicly twerk to partisan orchestras conducted by people who were in professional diapers when they were already in the Inner Bar and judges are made to believe it is kosher to enjoy political joyrides and be serenaded with four-wheel bribes by politically exposed persons.
Phillip Adenekan Adekunle Ademola had everything it took to pursue an excellent judicial career at the highest level. He was the grandson of a king, the son of a Chief Justice and a prince in his own right. In another era, he could easily have become the first second-generation Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN. It was his destiny to make neither and many still believe that he could have been the ablest Justice of the
Supreme Court Nigeria never had.
Born on 27 July 1926, Adenekan Ademola completed his high school education at Kings College in Lagos in 1944 and attended Higher College, Yaba before proceeding to the University of London where he graduated with a law degree. When he qualified as a lawyer in 1951, his dad was already a judge, only the third Nigerian, to be so appointed. Adenekan Ademola practised law for the next 19 years and spent three working as Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Egba Divisional Council in present-day Ogun State.
When General Yakubu Gowon’s administration gazetted his appointment as a judge of the High Court of the Western State of Nigeria on 18 June 1970, Adenekan Ademola was just 45 years old. His dad, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola, an Egba blue blood, had been in office as the CJN for 12 years and two years before retiring as CJN.
In 1977, five years after he was appointed a judge, another soldier, Olusegun Obasanjo, elevated Adenekan Ademola into the pioneer cohort of justices of the Court.
A product of the mostly diffident judicial philosophy of the military era, he did not let the soldiers down. When some pesky Taiwanese litigants approached his bench in the Court of Appeal to hold the military to account for what looked like an evident violation of human rights, Adenekan Ademola elegantly counselled judges to “blow muted trumpets.” It was only a matter of time, many thought before his diligent service was requited by setting him on his way to follow in the footsteps of his celebrated father to the Supreme Court. Many made it there who had but a fraction of his ability and preparation.
On more than two occasions, Adenekan Ademola was actively considered for elevation to the Supreme Court. He had the intellect and pedigree for the role, and no one could accuse him of judicial Levitas. In the end, it was not to be. There was a persistent objection from another scion of an equally famous Egba dynasty who relentlessly levied serious complaints against Adenekan Ademola, which were never
dispositively determined. But that was considered enough to ultimately park his judicial career in the cul-de-sac of the Court of Appeal. In 1991, Adenekan Ademola retired from the Court of Appeal. Reflecting his cultured intellectual outlook, he was later appointed the inaugural Director of Studies of the National Judicial Institute.
In those days, judicial integrity was taken seriously and even the slightest whiff of integrity deficit or exposure attracted career consequences. Sir Olumuyiwa Jibowu was the first Nigerian Justice of the Supreme Court. His reputation as a judge appeared impeccable. In 1957, it emerged that Sir Olumuyiwa had written a letter to an old friend, one Mr Savage, which was said to have content that made references
considered to be insalubrious about the leader of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC), Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. One year later, when his name came up for consideration to become the first indigenous CJN, the content of the letter was enough to force Sir Olumuyiwa’s withdrawal from contention. The beneficiary was Adenekan Ademola’s dad.
Today in Nigeria, closeness to politicians is widely perceived to be a boost to judicial ambitions, not a constraint. A Federal High Court judge has recently gone on record to say that to be appointed a federal judge today in Nigeria, “one must either have the backing of the presidency or a political party.”
A widely respected continental medium recently reported under the caption “Why Nigerian judges love Nyesom Wike”, that the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is “lauded like a rock star in judicial circles.” Part of the reason for the judicial superstardom of the FCT Minister is his material “generosity” towards judges.
This was not always the standard judicial fare. The 1983 elections in Nigeria were quite contentious. Those were the first to be supervised by civilians under the presidential system. Many of the disputes over
election outcomes ended up in court. Emmanuel Obioma Ogwuegbu, whose death at 91 recently became public, was then a judge of the High Court of Imo State. He later joined Adenekan Ademola in the Court of Appeal. The year after Adenekan Ademola’s retirement, Ogwuegbu proceeded to the Supreme Court, where he served for 11 years before retiring in 2003.
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