Chief Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the boa ...

Ayo Gabriel Irikefe, (3 March 1922 – 1 August 1996) was a Nigerian

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

and

Chief Justice of Nigeria The Chief Justice of Nigeria or CJN is the head of the judicial arm of the government of Nigeria, and presides over the country's Supreme Court and the National Judicial Council. The current Chief Justice is Olukayode Ariwoola who was appo ...

from 1985 to 1987.

Early life

Irikefe was born in March 1922 to the family of Aduwa and Theresa Irikefe. He was born at

Ikorodu Ikorodu is a large city in Lagos State, Nigeria. It is located to the north-east of Lagos, along the Lagos Lagoon and shares boundary with Ogun State. With a population of over 1million inhabitant, Ikorodu is currently the 12 largest city in Nig ...

, a local government area of

Lagos State Lagos State ( yo, Ìpínlẹ̀ Èkó) is a States of Nigeria, state in South West (Nigeria), southwestern Nigeria. Of the 36 States of Nigeria, states, it is both the List of Nigerian states by population, most populous and List of Nigerian state ...

in southwestern

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. He started his education at a

CMS CMS may refer to: Computing * Call management system * CMS-2 (programming language), used by the United States Navy * Code Morphing Software, a technology used by Transmeta * Collection management system for a museum collection * Color managem ...

school in

Okitipupa Okitipupa is a Local Government Area in Nigeria and part of the Ikale-speaking nation in Ondo State. Okitipupa Local Government headquarters is located in Okitipupa township with a university, Ondo State University of Science and Technology (OS ...

, then went to St John's School Okitpupa, St Mathews Catholic School, Ode-Ondo and St. Gregory's College, Obalende, Lagos where he obtained the West Africa School Certificate. He initially studied at the College of Marine Engineering and Communications, Manchester between 1945 and 1946 before deciding to study law in 1949.

Law career

He was called to the

English Bar Barristers in England and Wales are one of the two main categories of lawyer in England and Wales, the other being solicitors. Barristers have traditionally had the role of handling cases for representation in court, both defence and prosecutio ...

on July 1, 1952, the same year he established his own law firm. He was in legal practice in

Warri The city of Warri is an oil hub within South-South Nigeria and houses an annex of the Delta State Government House. Warri City is one of the major hubs of the petroleum industry in Nigeria. Warri and her twin city, Uvwie are the commercial c ...

from 1952 until 1955. In 1955, he rose to the position of a

Crown Counsel Crown counsel are lawyers, generally in Common Law jurisdictions, who provide advice to the government and acts as prosecutors in cases. In various jurisdictions their title can vary and they could also be known as the Queen's Advocate, King's Advo ...

to the Western Region of Nigeria where he served at

Ibadan Ibadan (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Oyo State, in Nigeria. It is the third-largest city by population in Nigeria after Lagos and Kano, with a total population of 3,649,000 as of 2021, and over 6 million people within its me ...

and later transferred to Benin city. He was a leading counsel to the committee that probed the activities of the Owegbe cult and was later appointed a judge in the High Court of Mid-Western Nigeria. In 1966, he became the Attorney General of the Mid-Western State, a position he held until he was appointed to the bench of the

Supreme Court of Nigeria The Supreme Court of Nigeria (SCN) is the highest court in Nigeria, and is located in the Central District, Abuja, in what is known as the Three Arms Zone, so called due to the proximity of the offices of the Presidential Complex, the National Ass ...

as Justice. In 1985 he became a member of the

Nigerian Body of Benchers The Nigerian Body of Benchers is a professional body concerned with the admission of successful candidates at the Nigerian Law School Bar Final Examination into the Legal Proffession. Members of the body are called ''Benchers''. The body also re ...

, the same year he was appointed as the

to succeed

George Sodeinde Sowemimo Chief George Sodeinde Sowemimo, (8 November 1920 – 29 November 1997) was a Nigerian Jurist and Chief Justice of Nigeria from 1983 to 1985. Prior to becoming a Supreme Court judge, Sowemimo is remembered as the judge in the treasonable felo ...

. Irikefe retired in 1985 having attained the statutory retirement age of 65. In 1975, he was made chairman of the panel on the creation of states and in 1980, Irikefe was appointed chairman of the Crude Oil Sales Tribunal to look into allegations of missing funds within the Nigerian petroleum corporation.

References

1922 births 1996 deaths People from Lagos State St Gregory's College, Lagos alumni Nigerian jurists Chief justices of Nigeria {{Nigeria-bio-stub