Early hours of Sunday witnessed the sudden passage of one of the most illustrious sons of the land and pioneer chairman of the lndependent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission, lCPC, Justice Mustapha Akanbi. He was equally the first Wakilin Ilorin. His passing came as a surprise as there was no reported health challenge. Although at 85 (he would have been 86 in four months time), it is difficult to question Allah. But you can be sure he died at a time his counsel was truly most needed.
In his lifetime, Justice Akanbi was best known for being an incorruptible judge. But he was also a renowned anti-corruption czar, an exemplary Muslim and humanist. One of the early persons that confirmed the news was one of his sons, Professor Mohammad Akanbi. With that confirmation, doubts about the possibility of the occurrence was erased. For sure, there are humans who live as though they have conquered death. Justice Akanbi was one of them. Not because he was without blemish, but because of the good works and practical life he lived for others. You just wish he will be around for a longer time.
Justice Akanbi has been buried according to Islamic injunction. This is fitting considering that the great man died during this year’s Ramadan. Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam. And the retired jurist was a devout Muslim.
The eminent humanist was born on September, 11, 1932 in Accra, Ghana. Justice Akanbi, after completing secondary school, worked as an Executive officer in the Ghana Civil Service. He was also an active trade unionist. Moving to Nigeria, he worked in the School Broadcasting Department of the Ministry of Education.
He was to later obtain a scholarship to study law at the Institute of Administration, now Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, followed by legal studies in the United Kingdom. He was called to the English Bar in 1963; a year later in 1964, he was called to the Nigerian Bar.
True to his new calling and professional competence, he joined the Ministry of Justice and became a Senior State Counsel in 1968. In 1969 he set up private practice in Kano. In 1974 he was appointed a judge of the Federal Revenue Court, and in January 1977, was elevated to the Court of Appeal Bench.
In 1992 he was made President of the Nigerian Court of Appeal, a position he held until retiring in 1999.
In 2000, President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Akanbi as Chairman of the newly established Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC. Four years later, the ICPC had failed to make any significant convictions. In his forthright nature, Akanbi publicly questioned why the government had set up the ICPC and appointed competent people to run it “only to frustrate it from performing by starving it of funds.”
In another instance, he raised another pertinent issue. This was that the law establishing the commission forbade it from investigating corrupt practices prior the creation of the ICPC. In March 2004, Justice Mustapha Akanbi urged parliamentarians to ratify the United Nations and the African Union Conventions Against Corruption, which would greatly assist the struggle against corruption.
As of July 2005, the ICPC had charges against 85 people but had only secured two corruption-related convictions.
Commenting on this record, Akanbi said he suspected that some judges had been paid off to toss out cases.
In September 2005, Akanbi said, “Corruption has been described as a cankerworm, a malaise that has afflicted our nation and done havoc to our corporate existence”.
He attributed the problem to a lack of will by past military leaders to fight corruption, inconsistency in government policies, and reluctance by law enforcement agencies to arrest and prosecute people he called “sacred cows”.
The retired lawyer was a good family man. He was a proud Ilorin native and demonstrated that in his deep affection towards his community in many instances. He was a champion of the culture of the people. His success could be seen in the successes recorded by his own children.
We are proud of the time he spent on earth and the works he did. We mourn with his family, Ilorin and Nigeria at large. The world has lost a good man and may his soul find Al Janah Fridauos.
