Media
- Home
- Details
In continuation of our engagement with the President of the NICN, Honourable Justice Adejumo, His Lordship spoke to DNL Legal & Style on the various transitions and brilliant transformations and innovations at the NIC.
DNL L&S: My Lord, what was the drive behind my lord’s penchant for success so far?
Justice Adejumo: I garner and Tap inspiration from those around me and my environment
It is only Almighty God that motivate and gives drive, if you have a drive and God doesn’t want it to be accomplished, there is nothing no one can do about it. I garner inspiration from people around me. My father’s friend who took me to Owo happens to be a Chief Magistrate and I took interest at first in his job seeing the way he does it but because I didn’t go to school, that idea was almost buried. Even when I had the opportunity of going to the university to read law, I never thought I would become a judge, I thought as a former warder I would go back to the prison service or join police at a higher level and retire either as a commissioner or a comptroller of prison. That was my intention but as God would have it, when I finished and joined a chamber and my principal then was teaching me, and I thought I could have it and I was opportuned to have appeared before very fine judges, the Justice Baloguns, Justice Candid Johnsons, they would drill you and put you on your toes, I became interested in practice, I felt it was a fine job, the respect was there. The money wasn’t there yet but it was fulfilling.
I remember when I became a Chief Magistrate and I was adjudicating, people like late Baba Ogedengbe a one time Director General of the Nigerian Law School, and Fesobi called me after they had lost a matter before me and said to me, your worship I appeared before you and I lost but it was a very well-considered judgment, your worship your seat is not here but up there. Several of them told me this so I became interested in becoming a judge but I was no 17 as a magistrate. One day I called my then registrar Mr. Oke and I told him “Oke one day I would become a judge” and Mr. Oke replied, “will you kill all those in your front to become a judge?” I told him we don’t know the plan of God and we both laughed.
After becoming the Deputy Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, I worked with Late Justice Bello and after he retired, I worked under Late Justice Ogundare and Hon. Justice Uwais, they were fine gentlemen who do not take no for an answer. And seeing the way they worked, I became so interested in all they did. While I was the DCR 1 I was also the Secretary to the Advisory Judicial Committee now NJC.
All the Chief Judges in the federation and the Attorneys General were members of the Committee, so I had to prepare their working papers and make sure everything was in order. No nonsense was tolerated. I was doing this and at the same time and I was the Secretary of the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee. And I was doing these three jobs and reporting to my boss Justice Uwais and I became interest in all these people and that was my infatuation until God blessed it and I became a high court judge in 1998 and I was there for 5 years and some months.
After I was appointed, I called Mr. Oke on a lighter mood and told him that I am now a judge but I didn’t have to kill anybody to become a high court judge. He said to me “My Lord, I was surprised too” because then I was the 2nd person to have become a High Court judge from the Magistrate. As at the date of my appointment as a judge of the High Court of Ondo State, I was just 11 years post call.
To be continued…
