Legal Torchbearers Honour Pa. Tunji Gomez at 90
The series of activities marking the 90th birthday celebration of the most senior practising member of the Lagos Bar and one of the doyens of legal activism in Nigeria, Pa Olatunji Gomez, began on Thursday, 15th March, 2018 with a Special Lecture in his honour at the High Court of Lagos State at Igbosere, Lagos Island.
NEWSWIRE Magazine’s Lagos correspondent reports that the lecture was organised by the Legal Torchbearers, a body of young activists at the Lagos Bar, the Lecture, titled, “Bar Activism in Nigeria: Past, Present and Future,” brought together the Nigerian legal community in a heartfelf tribute to a career spanning 57 years – and counting – a career dedicated as much for the promotion of the public good as for personal and career advancement.
In his opening remarks, the chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Olufemi Okunnu, CON, SAN (whose association with the celebrant dates as far back as their student days at the iconic King’s College, Lagos in the 1940s) lamented what he saw as the slow but sure extinction of the fire of activism among current members of the Bar, as opposed to the fervour of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s (and cin particular during the eventful tenure of Alao Aka-Bashorun as President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).
As a result of this dampening of revolutionary fire (and indeed collusion with public office-holders even at the detriment of the public good), Alhaji Okunnu said, legislative houses across the land have all but become law courts in their own right. ‘Are the days of legal activism behind us?’ he asked rhetorically, urging lawyers to gird their loins anew and play a leading role in the fight for true federalism in Nigeria.
The citation of Pa Olatunji Fortunatus Gomez was read out by Gloria Ireka.
Born on March 15, 1928, the young Tunji Gomez enrolled at the prestigious King’s College in 1944, where he soon acquired a reputation for his independent-mindedness, fearlessness and leadership ability. He eventually qualified as a lawyer in 1961, after training in England.
In over a half-century of professional practice, Pa Tunji Gomez has come to symbolise the social conscience of the legal profession in Nigeria.
The Special Lecture of the day. In his highly illuminating presentation, Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics, LSE, gave a brilliant summation of the evolution of legal activism, especially in the years immediately preceding and following the birth in March 1928 of Pa Gomez (himself a scion of two accomplished families, the Dohertys and the Gomeses) who were know n to be at the vanguard of Lagosians fight for property rights during colonial times. Repeatedly making the point that legal activism was, first and foremost a question of moral and intellectual leadership, Prof. Odinkalu linked the activism of the first indigenous Nigerian lawyer, Christopher Sapara Williams, to the present and ongoing clamour for the restructuring of the Nigerian polity, situating Pa Gomez’s central role as the living conscience of that activist heritage from his student days at King’s College. It was a role, Odinkalu said, which came at a steep price – a price which Pa Gomez was nevertheless willing to pay, comforted as he was by the armour of his social conscience (in accordance with his personal credo: It’s a Matter of Conscience).
Pa Gomez’s ideological consistency through the decades of transition from white colonialism to the rule by black politicians and soldiers, said Odinkalu, was in line with his belief that a lawyer’s first duty was the wellbeing of his fellow citizens and the good ordering of society, whatever the clime or dispensation.
The guest lecturer concluded his remarks by paying to the activism of women at the Bar, whose own legacy of struggle (though largely unaknowledged) was nevertheless a great source of inspiration for the future of female lawyers in particular, and the Bar in general, as well as a fitting tribute to the historical role played by Pa Olatunji Gomez.
Following the guest lecturer’s presentation, special gifts were presented to the chairman of the occassion, Alh. Femi Okunnu, SAN, CON, and to members of the panel of discussants.
Afterwards, guests joined the celebrant and his family in cutting the birthday cake.
The vote of thanks was given by Lema Adebola as the event came to a close.
See photos below:
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