Editorial
A notable star fell from the judicial horizon on May 22. An eminent jurist departed. Justice Adolphus Godwin Karibi-Whyte, who retired from the Supreme Court in 2002, died of a heart attack, in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, aged 88.
Born on January 29, 1932 in Abonnema, Akuku Toru Local Government Area of the state, Justice Karibi-Whyte had the best of two worlds in law – the academia and bar/bench. Judges, by the nature of their calling, are largely taciturn; they are seen but rarely heard; they are heard mainly through their judicial elucidations. However, Justice Karibi-Whyte’s propitious career streaks spoke eloquently of him as a judicial-cum-intellectual colossus. He rose by dint of brilliance to the pinnacle of his calling.
He attended Kalabari National College (KNC), Buguma, Rivers State, from 1946 to 1950 and worked as a court clerk from 1951 to 1957. He thereafter obtained his LL.B degree from the University of Hull in 1960 and was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1961. He went for his Master’s degree in Law (LL.M), which he obtained in September, 1962 from the University of London. He returned home for his doctorate in Law, which he bagged from the University of Lagos in 1970 and thereafter made a foray into the academic world.
He distinguished himself as a scholar, rising to the position of an Associate Professor of Law before he left the academia. It was here that he displayed his prowess as an intellectual and prolific writer. He had no less than 13 books and 55 academic publications in local and international learned journals, to his credit. His intellectual works include The Federal High Court: Law and Practice (1984) and The Relevance of the Judiciary in the Polity: Historical Perspective (1987).
Justice Karibi-Whyte began his career in the bar in 1973 when he was appointed Legal Draftsman in the Rivers State Ministry of Justice and rose to become the solicitor-general of the ministry in 1976, the same year he moved to the bench as a judge of the then Federal Revenue Court (now Federal High Court). Four years after, 1980 precisely, he was appointed into the Court of Appeal, where he served till 1984 when he was elevated to the apex court in the land. He served in the Supreme Court till 2002 when he bowed out honourably. He thus became the second Nigerian after Dr. T. O. Elias to have moved directly from the academia to the judiciary.
This consummate legal-cum-intellectual icon added an international plume to the crest of his legal laurels in 1993 when he was appointed a judge of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia sitting at the Hague. He also served as vice-president of the tribunal between 1993 and 1997.
Years after Justice Karibi-Whyte had left the bench, some of his judicial pronouncements remain reference points. In fact, his dissenting opinions have become illuminating judicial guides for the apex court in subsequent similar cases, and the basis of legislative interventions. Some of such celebrated cases included (Government of Gongola State vs. Tukur 1989); Attorney-General of the Federation vs. Attorney-General of Abia State (popularly known as the ‘resource control’ case)(2001); Grace Jack vs. University of Agriculture, Makurdi (2004) and Savannah Bank of Nigeria Limited vs. Pan Atlantic Shipping & Transport Agencies Limited (1987).
Prof. Paul Idornigie of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) was quoted as commenting on the late Justice Karibi-Whyte’s predilection for dissenting opinions: “Justice Karibi-Whyte’s dissenting opinions in obvious opposition to the decisions of the majority justices are not only legendary and seminal but unparalleled in Nigeria.”
His ad-hoc appointments were no less ennobling. They included chairman of such committees, bodies and tribunals as Counterfeit Currency Tribunal; Committee of Pro-Chancellors of State-Owned Universities; Law Report Committee of the Federal High Court; Civil Disturbances Tribunal; Committee for the Unification of Reform of the Criminal Code, Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Act of Criminal Procedure Code and the Nigerian Constitutional Conference of 1994-1995.
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