By Adesina Soyooye
His Excellency, Prince Bola Ajibola, SAN, is dead.
A statement issued by his family, signed by his son, Adesegun Ajibola, SAN, said his father died of old age midnight Saturday.
Prince Ajibola, a revered man of many parts, founder Crescent University, was a former Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister for Justice. He was also a Judge at the International Court of Justice, Hague, Netherlands. He died at age 89. He had, for sometime, been inactive due to old age.
His son’s Press Statement which announced his passing, and reeled out his many achievements, honours and positions held, reads:
“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raaji’uun.
“Truly to Allah we belong and unto Him is our final return.
“This is to announce the passing on of our revered and dearly beloved father, His Excellency Judge AbdulJabbar Bolasodun Adesumbo Ajibola (SAN, KBE, LL.D, D.Litt, FNIALS, FCIArb, CFR) which occurred over the midnight today, 9 April 2023.
“Judge Ajibola will always be remembered as an icon of Law and Judicature, an embodiment of both the Bar and the Bench. He was President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and Father of Arbitration in Nigeria; Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Federation; Chairman, Body of Benchers; Judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and member of its Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at the Hague; President of the Jurists Association of the World Association of Judges; member of the United Nations Compensation Commission on Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait; Arbitrator and Commissioner of the Ethiopia/Eritrea Boundary Commission; member, Vice-President and then President of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal; Chairman of the National Boundary Commission and Chairman of the Nigerian Delegation to the Nigeria/Cameroon Mixed Commission on the Bakassi Peninsula; and last but not the least, High Commissioner to the United Kingdom amongst numerous other high profile, national and international commitments, assignments and accolades.
“He was a recipient of great honours from King Abdullah II of Jordan and he received similar tributes from King Abdullah bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud, the immediate past King of Saudi Arabia. Judge Ajibola is a Fellow of the Aal al Bayt Institute of Thought in Amman, Jordan and has remained for more than a decade, a regular biographee of that Institute’s prestigious publication, ‘‘The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World.
At the humanitarian level, Judge Bola Ajibola founded the African Concern in 1994. This was intended as an African response to the Rwandan genocide and many other wars and civil strife which then bestraddled the entire African continent in one form or the other. He founded the Islamic Mission for Africa (IMA) in 1996 to promote Islam in its true light as a religion of peace, love and harmonious co-existence amongst all peoples – doing so through the means of education, socialisation, publicity and enlightenment.
“The crowning glory of the IMA endeavour was the establishment of Crescent University, which became a private University through the grant of Licence by the Federal Government on 9 June 2005.
“Judge Ajibola not only served nationally and internationally; he is warmly loved in his homestead of Abeokuta where he is Oluomo of Egbaland and Olori Omo Oba of Owu Kingdom.
“We pray that Almighty Allah will pardon his shortcomings, accept his return and grant him a lofty station amongst His honoured friends in Paradise (Jannatul Firdaws). Ameen.”
Ajibola was from Ogun State, Nigeria.
