A tribute to Justice Mustapha Akanbi

THE news of the death of Justice Muhammad Mustapha Adebayo Akanbi, the erudite jurist and the moral voice of Nigerian nation, on June 3, 2018 came as a shock to many in the country. Akanbi had distinguished himself as a lawyer of repute and had come to be associated with the efforts at eradicating the menace of corruption plaguing Nigeria. His judicial activism and humanity influence went beyond the shores of his native Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria, and even beyond the country.

To commemorate his eighty-second birthday in November 26, 2014, his family and associates had converged on Abuja with the public presentation of two of his books. Autobiography entitled: Thestoryof Mytwoworlds:challenges,experienceandachievements and Alifeofserviceandgrace to celebrate with him. Towards the middle of year 2016, Akanbi against his personal will, had to travel to the United Kingdom to receive medical treatment and was there for some months. He was off and on in 2017 and he finally came home in 2017 to continue to receive medical attention in Abuja. Since his return home, he has been visiting his doctors regularly in Abuja and last Friday, June 1, 2018, I asked one of my colleagues in the office whom Baba himself used to call Alhaji, when last did he hear from Baba and he told me that Baba “is fine and doing well in Ilorin.” However, two days later, a friend woke me up around 4 a.m. that Justice Akanbi is dead. I was shocked and took solace in the firm belief that he lived a fulfilled life.

Akanbi was born in Accra, Ghana on September 11, 1932 and died on Sunday June 3, 2018 after a rich, accomplished, glorious and fulfilling 85 years on earth. Baba as popularly called was born to Muslim parents from Ilorin in North Central Nigeria and was a fervent believer in Almighty Allah till his last breath. The young Akanbi after completing secondary school, worked as an executive officer in the Ghana Civil Service. He was also active as a trade unionist. He later moved back to Nigeria and started work in the School Broadcasting Department of the Ministry of Education in the early 1960s

Akanbi obtained a scholarship to study law at the Institute of Administration, now Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He also studies in England, United Kingdom. He was called to the English Bar in 1963, and was called to the Nigerian Bar in January 1964. In 1969, he set up his private practice in Kano. His late father later persuaded him to abandon his private practice. In obedience to his father, he joined the Ministry of Justice and became a Senior State Counsel in 1974. He was later appointed a judge of the Federal Revenue Court, and in January 1977, he was elevated to the Court of Appeal Bench. In 1992 he was made president of the Nigerian Court of Appeal, a position he held until retiring in 1999. In 2000 Akanbi was appointed as the chairman of the newly established Independent Corrupt and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and retired in 2005 after the expiration of his first term in office despite pressure from the Presidency and his associates to continue in office.

Akanbi joined the board of the Justice and Law Enforcement Reformation Organization, a non-profit organisation that aims to eradicate corruption and poverty from the perspective of the Judiciary and Law Enforcement agencies. In 2006, Akanbi in the continuation of his service to humanity, established the Mustapha Akanbi Foundation in Ilorin, dedicated to strengthening civil society groups, governmental agencies and private business concerns and helping them imbibe a culture of transparency and accountability. His Foundation has been holding regular public seminars and workshops on core mandates of the organisation and such events have taken place in Ilorin, Abuja and Lagos in the past.

I encountered his name as did many journalists of my generation in early 1990s but my proper introduction to his reputation and cosmopolitan nature was however at ICPC Headquarters, Abuja on the day of our oral interview in October, 2005. He was the chairman of the panel that interviewed six of us selected for our category. At the age of 75 years, Akanbi sat throughout the interview sessions lasting to the wee hours of the next day. My set was invited to the ICPC Board room venue of the interview few minutes after 12 midnights. What first struck me about Justice Akanbi is his ability and mental capacity to do that kind of exercise at his age. At the end of the interview session, Akanbi told the six of us present that we all performed very well but the Commission had only a slot for our level and he asked with all sense of urgency; “May I know if any of you will like to take the lower level because we are just going to take one of you.” None of us-interviewees responded and he later dispersed us.

His highly cosmopolitan and incorruptible characters were revealed later when we the newly employed staff of the Commission heard how Akanbi stood his ground and insisted on following the laid down rules and regulations guiding recruitment in the anti-graft agency. The consensus of opinion among the staff of the Commission is that 2005 recruitment exercise was the best in term transparency in the history of the agency because it was devoid of political and external influences. Akanbi informed me that nobody could have insinuated that he influenced employment when he was in ICPC, “we employed people based on merits.”

The nationalist character of Justice Akanbi was further confirmed when he told Abiodun Fagbemi of Theguardian “in an interview published in Theguardian” on Saturday, November 5, 2011 at page 51. “To me you are a Nigerian, whether you are Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, Idoma or whatever you are. That is why whenever I go to Abuja now all of them (ICPC Staff) will come to me. I heard people saying that they were shocked seeing their names on the list of those employed by the ICPC. They said they did not know anybody and least expect that their names would not be out.” I can confidently say that I am one of beneficiaries of this recruitment exercise. This is to Justice Akanbi’s integrity. Babasolaisonthestaffoficpc,wrotefromabuja.