Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN, LL.D: Exit Of A Legal Colossus

 By Mike Ozehkome

Introduction 

The death, on Sunday, the 29th day of October, 2023, of Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN, brought to an end, arguably, the first generation of Senior Advocates of Nigeria. The first ever set of SANs in Nigeria comprised legal giants, Chief F.R.A. Williams and Dr. N.B. Graham-Douglass (both now late), who took the Silk on 4th March, 1975.

*Prof Nwabueze
There was a three-year period of interregnum between 1975 and 1st of December, 1978, when this academic and legal colossus was silked with 12 other legal titans such as Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, Mr. T.A.Bankole-Oki, Mr E.A. Molajo, Mr. Kehinde Sofola, Chief Richard Akinjide, Mr. G.O.K. Ajayi, Mr. Olisa Chukwura, Dr. Nwakanma Okoro, Dr. Mudiga Odje, Mr. P.O. Balonwu and Dr. Augustin Nnamani. Nwabueze was certainly the first from the academia, based strictly on his published works. His first love was the classroom and he bestrode it like the colossus he was. He was thus justifiably called “the Professor of professors”. He remained a teacher and mentor of many generations of legal academics, both in Nigeria and beyond, till his last breath. I am one of his beneficiaries who compared notes with him and drank from his inexhaustible well of knowledge and wisdom.

From Wild, Wild West To National Inferno!

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

A seemingly innocuous spark in an otherwise isolated part of a nation can change the course of history. 

Nigerian history as we have it today owes its shape to the handling or mishandling of the Action Group crisis of the early 1960s. The initial crisis led to a chain of events culminating in the Nigeria/Biafra war and the deeply polarized and wounded nation such as we have today.

*Awolow, Azikiwe, Balewa

“May you live in interesting times,” is a twice-told charge; and thus Chief Simeon Olatunde Oloko found himself through forces beyond his control to be in the epicenter as a witness of the events that reshaped Nigerian history. Born at Agodi in Ibadan, the author who studied at the esteemed London School of Economics and Political Science, and was called to the bar of Inner Temple in 1958, served as secretary of the pivotal Western Nigeria Development Corporation (WNDC) from the vantage point of which he lived through the manifold crises that bedeviled the old Western Region and Nigeria.