People are mortal. Only in literature and memories do those who claim to be immortal exist. Historical evidence suggests that these renowned immortals either manifested as tangible objects like rocks, water, or trees, vanished into thin air, or—in some cases—were reputedly swallowed by the earth.
You cease to exist or be a part of life on Earth’s surface when you pass away and are buried, change into stones, vanish into thin air, or any of these things. A glaring example of how time is a finite resource, and that no matter how long we live here, we do not endure forever.
Elders, especially aged ones, often leave a large void that cannot be properly replaced when they pass away. More than only their bodies and souls are lost to the individuals they leave behind. They lose recordings of the things they experienced, heard about, and witnessed.
As these elders travel to the region of Hades in large numbers, one should exhibit concern and worry. It poses a serious threat to our wealth of information, customs, and traditions.
Ogun State, as well as Nigeria and Africa as a whole, experienced two catastrophes in the course of two weeks. One, the sad loss of Oladipo Diya, an Ogun-born soldier and former Chief of General Staff under military president, General Sani Abacha and two, the the tragic passing of Bola Ajibola, a former judge of the International Court of Justice, Hague, Netherlands.
Bola Ajibola died 32 years after serving as Nigeria’s minister of justice and attorney general of federation under the military rule of Ibrahim Babangida. Bola Ajibola, the proud prince of Abeokuta and founder of Crescent University served as justice minister from 1985 to 1991. Mr Ajibola, the founder of Crescent University, Abeokuta, died on Saturday midnight, 8th April in 2023 after a long illness associated with old age.
When good people pass way, they leave notable memories. Despite serving for six years as Minister for Justice, he was reputed never to have collected salary. He divided his salary into several parts and allocated it to government purse, charity organizations and for the promotion of legal profession.
In an interview which was published on Vanguard Newspapers on the 25th of December, 2009, late Bola Ajibola narrated how he diverted his salary for better governance.
An excerpt;
“When eventually I was called upon to serve as the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, before then I had practiced law for twenty-three years, I was very, very rich and I had properties all over Nigeria. And before then I already served as the President of the Nigerian Bar Association. So when I got to the office, I asked myself: Should I take the salary here? Have I enough with me that could sustain me in this job without taking a kobo from the government? I went back home the same day, which was the 12th of September, 1985 and when I got home, I checked my assets, my stocks shares, my rents on the buildings that I had then, my properties and realized that I could safely, prudently with some carefulness, take care of myself and my family without taking money from the government.
The second day, when I got to the office, I called my Personal Assistant in the Ministry of Justice to give me some papers and I put it in writing that throughout my service in this ministry my salaries, every emolument and whatsoever should be directed as follows: Thirty-five per cent should go back to the government, pay qthe government back its money in order to give us better governance; my root was from the Nigerian Bar Association, give them twenty-five per cent of this salary every month without fail; then the rest of the forty per cent should be distributed among eight charitable, humanitarian organizations all over Nigeria. They should be paid five per cent each of this money every month.
It was in addition to that I engaged the services of three lawyers being paid for directly from my purse by myself to work in the Ministry of Justice in order to build something good for Nigerian Monthly Law Reports, which was started before me, which was neglected and which I updated and we put it on in 1990″.
Early life
Bola Ajibola, a prince from Owu kingdom was born on 22 March 1934 in Owu, near Abeokuta, Colonial Nigeria, to the Owu royal family of Oba Abdul-Salam Ajibola Gbadela II, who was the traditional ruler of Owu between 1949 and 1972.
Education
Bola Ajibola attended both Owu Baptist Day School and Baptist Boys’ High School in Abeokuta between 1942 and 1955. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Law (LL.B.) at the Holborn College of Law, University of London between 1959 and 1962 and was called to the English Bar at the Lincoln’s Inn in 1962. He returned to Nigeria to practise Law.
CAREER
Bola Ajibola was a lawyer specialized in Commercial Law and International Arbitration. Before he came a jurist, he was Attorney General and the Minister of Justice of Nigeria from 1985 to 1991. He later became a Judge of the International Court of Justice from 1991 to 1994.
He was president of the Nigerian Bar Association from 1984 to 1985. He was also one of five commissioners on the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, organized through the Permanent Court of Arbitration. He was the High Commissioner of Nigeria to the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2002.
Prince Bola Ajibola was chairman of the panel set up by the Plateau State government to probe the 2008 Jos riots. He established an Islamic and co-educational institution, Crescent University, in Nigeria in 2005, and he served as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Muslim Ummah of South West Nigeria (MUSWEN).
MARITAL LIFE
Bola Ajibola was married to Olufunmilayo Janet Abeni Ajibola, who died in London on 8 June 2016. He died on 8 April 2023, at the age of 89