REMEMBERING FRED EGBE

Odein Ajumogobia pays tribute to Fred Egbe, an outstanding lawyer and an entrepreneur

Adistinguished commercial lawyer, Mr Fred Egbe was known and esteemed throughout the Nigerian business community and in commercial legal circles, especially. Egbe’s contribution to legal practice in Nigeria was far-reaching. Apart from establishing one of the foremost commercial law practices in Nigeria, named and styled Fred Egbe & Co, he was the consummate corporate/commercial lawyer and litigator who groomed several lawyers that went on to achieve distinction and prominence both in the legal profession and out of it. He quietly mentored and inspired countless others.

I was privileged to come under his generous and watchful influence between 13 August 1980 and 31 March 1983. During that relatively brief professional association, apart from learning to be a good lawyer, he managed to imbue in me, a sense of the place and importance of law in public policy formulation, in the newly minted democracy of our second Republic, under President Shehu Shagari.

Born in 1934, having been called to the bar in 1962, Fred Egbe scaled the peaks of success early, becoming an extremely successful lawyer at a relatively young age. In 1974 he came to national prominence as chairman of the Port Decongestion Committee set up by the Federal Government of Nigeria to solve the congestion in Apapa and Tin Can Ports, arising from what came to be known as the “cement armada” - an unprecedented flotilla of cargo vessels in Nigeria’s territorial waters, waiting to discharge their endless cargoes of cement!

An outstanding advocate, Fred Egbe was a true international lawyer, both by choice and in disposition. He was brilliant, urbane, dapper, humorous, charming and compassionate and it is these qualities, combined with his legal expertise that made him the formidable figure that he was in his field.

His early exposure to the world of commerce in our promising newly independent nation had equipped him with a unique understanding of private business needs and their intersection with public policy, which he applied to great effect in his successful career in private practice, as a lawyer and much later - when legal practice ceased to hold his interest, as a “fisherman”, as he self-effacingly referred to himself with his massive investment in a trawling enterprise called Scot Fishing.

A fervent defender of what he believed in and gifted, not just in his knowledge of law, but with the use of its unique language, especially when it came to the violation of his own rights, Egbe had the courage of his convictions. His exceptional legal writing skills, are recorded for posterity in the several records of landmark appeals to the Supreme Court, through his eloquent briefs and compelling advocacy in Fred Egbe v MD Yusuf & others; Fred Egbe v Adefarasin; State v Ilori and Fred Egbe v Alhaji Alhaji that I was privileged to have played a modest part and which I am certain will in time come to influence our jurisprudence on the undue legal protection of public officers, in Nigeria.

His several detentions and the humiliation he suffered based on false criminal charges, did not deter him. These charges included one for stealing land, even when the criminal code itself describes land as something incapable of being stolen! It was especially significant that the land in question was owned by a company whose sole shareholders and directors were himself and his aged mother!!

When I gently questioned the propriety or wisdom of his continuing to take on the powerful establishment including the powerful Chief Judge of the State, in which he had established his successful practice or the Inspector- General of Police, in the courts, he quoted John F. Kennedy “that a man must do what he must regardless of personal consequences”. That was it: The courage to pursue his convictions, not necessarily minding the outcome. It was for him more about the due process of law.

There were dire consequences for doing so. His practice was destroyed, as clients anxious not to be caught in the cross fire of a powerful government’s antagonism towards his person, took their legal problems elsewhere.

But he remained undeterred until the very end. It was for him a journey. He thus went from being the quintessential business lawyer to a determined crusader against impunity in public service, as he sought justice in his own causes and by extension in our own. As he often said with a mischievous glint in his eyes when I occasionally called to pay my respects, “the struggle continues…”

Then suddenly, he succumbed to a brutal illness that gave him little time to properly arrange his personal affairs and his vast estate, before passing on.

On 25 October 2009 in his beautiful home in Warri, as I watched the body of this great lawyer lowered into his grave at a quiet private ceremony, largely unsung, I quietly reflected on how much this man had taught me in just 30 months as a young lawyer in his firm and how much of a lasting impact he had on my career and life. I appreciated even more the nature of the personal sacrifices that he made and the lonely road he travelled, in standing up for what he believed.

A complex man, Fred Egbe’s personality had several facets: an outstanding solicitor and advocate; an astute investor; a successful entrepreneur; a brilliant, humorous and self-effacing man of courage and charisma; but above all, he was till the end a most distinguished servant of the law.

I write this tribute on the tenth anniversary of the passing of Fred Egbe as a testament of honour to a man who by his example set me on a path of professional success and fulfilment.