By Kayode Fayemi
The news of the demise of one of the most illustrious Nigerians struck the airwave like a thunderbolt on Tuesday. Even though Chief Akinjide passed on peacefully into eternity at a ripe age of approximately 88 years, his death is a great loss to his family, the legal profession, Oyo state and Nigeria as a whole.
It could be rightly said that Chief Richard Akinjide was a living legend in the field of legal practice in Nigeria, as he belonged in the second set of those to be awarded the prestigious honour of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 1978 along with other respected Nigerians among whom, only Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN is still around today.
He was truly a legal giant, a brilliant advocate, an astute prosecutor and jurisprudential philosopher of significant note. For him, the legal profession was a conquered territory which he explored with profitable intensity and sauntered himself into the national consciousness as one of the notable legal sages the nation has ever had.
He was called to both the Nigerian and the English Bars and reached the apogee of the inner bar in the two realms, becoming a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in the seventies and a Queen’s Counsel in England in the eighties.
He was formerly, President, Nigeria Bar Association, Chairman and Life Member, Body of Benchers and was until his last breath, Chairman of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria.
Akinjide was the renowned Attorney-General of the Federation between 1979-1983 and had been a member of the constitutional Drafting Committee that produced the 1979 Constitution.
Chief Richard Osuolale Akinjide had a sound education that prepared him for his exemplary career. He attended the iconic Oduduwa College, Ile-Ife where he passed out in 1951 with all distinctions in his subjects.
He proceeded to England to study law and graduated in 1955 with a brilliant result. At 25 years, he returned to Nigeria as the dazzling, dapper and brilliant legal celebrity and bestridden the Nigerian legal and political landscape as a colossus.
He was a cerebral legal luminary who used his exceptional legal brilliancy to create a niche for himself among the packs. You might not agree with him, but he had a compelling eloquence that would get you mesmerized.
His legal mind, representations, formulas and advocacy have helped in deepening and shaping the nation’s legal jurisprudence and administration of justice.
Though his controversial and iconoclastic stances on topical national issues were often unacceptable to many, his patriotism, resilience and conviction could not be faulted.
For him, it was not all about law. He was also a political juggernaut, an astute investor, a religious chieftain and a cultural icon.
A strategic politician, he was one of the young Turks that greatly defined the theory and praxis of the politics of the First Republic during which he was appointed as Minister of Education at a relatively young age of 33 years.
He was Attorney-General and Minister of Justice in the Second Republic after serving as the redoubtable National Legal Adviser of the victorious National Party of Nigeria. Thereafter he served in many committees, commission and councils at various times.
Politically, Chief Akinjide associated with those commonly considered as the conservatives and bore the stigma of being the genius behind the controversial constitutional arithmetic that got President Shehu Shagari the legal victory over Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1979, an outcome which remains an unsettled controversy in the history of legal jurisprudence Nigeria and the politics of the Southwest. He consistently played against the dominant political party in his southwest domain and was generally seen as a maverick player by his traducers.
But having had the privilege of relating well with him as his neighbour in Idi-Ishin, Ibadan in his older years, it would be more appropriate to describe him as a radical conservative who shared many of the values of the Progressives in our country in his latter years.
For example, we were quite aligned in our views on how best to restructure the Nigerian state and he also became a convert of free and compulsory basic education, an issue that he was virulently opposed to in his contest against Uncle Bola in the 1979 gubernatorial race in Oyo State.
Even at that, he would often chide me, “Kayode, you and your colleagues are not radical enough. You should be shaking the tables harder than you’re doing.”
He was a man of immense courage of conviction and a man of prodigious intellect with an uncluttered, encyclopaedic mind.
He will be fondly remembered for his brilliance and accomplishments. May his soul rest in perfect peace.
- Dr. Fayemi, CON is governor, Ekiti State & chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
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