CJN, Ex-Kenyan Chief Justice, Others for Punuka Lecture, Idigbe Centenary Grand Finale

Steve Aya

Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, GCON, is among dignitaries expected at the 2024 Punuka Attorneys & Solicitors Annual Public Lecture and grand finale of the centenary celebrations in honour of the late Justice Chukwunweike Idigbe of the Supreme Court, who founded the firm.

Former Chief Justice/President of the Supreme Court of Kenya, Hon. Justice Dr Willy Mutunga, will chair the event.

Kwara State Governor and Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum, AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq will lead other Governors to the event. Also expected are serving and retired Justices of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, serving and retired Judges of the High Courts and Senior Lawyers.

The event will be held on December 5, 2024, in Lekki, Lagos at the new PUNUKA head office complex, PAS World Centre, which will be opened the same day.

The lecture will be delivered by Professor Olabisi Akinkugbe of Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.

The late Justice Idigbe was a distinguished Nigerian Jurist, who practiced law all over West Africa from 1947 to 1961. He served as a Judge in the then Eastern Region of Nigeria High Court and Chief Justice of the Midwest Region, rising to the position of Justice of the Supreme Court.

Hon. Justice Idigbe, JSC was born on August 12, 1923, in Kaduna. He studied law at King’s College, University of Cambridge. The first Lawyer in the Asaba Division and the then Benin Province, he settled in Warri, where he established his law office PUNUKA Chambers in 1947 (named after his great-great-grandfather Obi Idigbe, who was married to one ‘Onye Punuka’) with the famous Sierra-Leonean Lawyer, Nelson Williams.

In 1961, he was appointed a Judge of the Eastern Nigeria High Court, and in 1964, he was elevated to the position of Justice of the Supreme Court.

Justice Idigbe passed away on July 31, 1983, at the Cromwell Hospital in London, just a few days short of his 60th birthday and anticipated appointment as the Chief Justice of Nigeria. He was a remarkable Jurist and a trailblazer in his field, leaving a legacy that inspires generations of legal practitioners in Nigeria and beyond.