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.
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.
