Chief Emmanuel Babatunde Ibironke, SAN

Birth Date: December 30, 1933

Home Town: Ilesa

Location: Deceased

Country: Nigeria

Alumni: Old Student

Category: LAW AND ORDER

Period: 1948 - 1952

Profession: Law Teacher

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Submitted By: abi

 Deceased
Born 30th December 1933 at Ilesa. Died on Sunday the 19th day of October 2003.

The second Indigenous Director- General of the Nigerian Law School, Victoria Island, Lagos 1979 - 1993.  

Chief Ibironke, "the Director", as he was fondly known by generations of students at the Nigerian Law School, would be missed by all the strata of the Nigerian legal fraternity because nearly eighty percent of the legal practitioners in Nigeria today, be they on the Bench, in active practice, academics or corporate world are his products. 

The life and times of the late Ibironke is a sound confirmation that individuals make history. He sure made history in the due diligence with which he nurtured the school to the great heights it attained during his time.  And in this connection, the records on the ground are that Chief Ibironke was a colossus who bestrode the Nigerian legal world without any equal.

He attended Ilesha Grammar School where he passed the Cambridge School Certificate in 1952. Thereafter, he proceeded to the North Western Polytechnic where he studied for the GCE Advanced level between 1953 and 1954. With his Advanced Level certificates, he gained admission into the University College, London to read law. He completed his legal training by his call to the English Bar by the Middle Temple on 16th November 1959. Since then till when he died, Chief Ibironke became synonymous with the law.

Upon arrival in Nigeria in 1960, the young Ibironke joined the then Nigeria’s post-colonial public service and was later posted to the Federal Ministry of Justice as a Crown Counsel in the office of the DPP. From there he was appointed lecturer in the Nigerian Law School as a part-time lecturer thereby on hand to teach the very first set of students who were admitted into the school. Until he retired from the Law School as a Director in 1993, the late Ibironke was to make the school his life as he gave all to see that it became the edifice it is now.

As the Director of the Law School, Ibironke insisted on the highest level of professional ethics and moral discipline. He was very strict with the rules and in the process successfully moulded a lot of lives who passed through the School.

One area that the nation would remain grateful to the late Director of the Law School was his dogged determination to preserve the standard of legal education in the country. This great teacher spared no stone in the singular effort to ensure that Nigerian lawyers hold their own in learning and in character. To this end, the late Ibironke touched the lives of every student that went through the system. His towering presence on the grounds of the law school was, to say the least; intimidating; both staff and students have to  always be on their guards as not to fall below the standards set by the Director who insisted on teaching by examples.

He was fair to all and in particular, to the students, who came from far and wide and from diverse backgrounds to the new realties of Lagos. Indeed, he was like a father to all of them. It is the tale of every Nigerian lawyer that any time Ibironke, the Director, enters the classroom , law students know that it is time to be serious and comport themselves as he is very well-known never to miss an opportunity to teach students one thing or the other about discipline, professional carriage and honesty. He was the master on his turf.

At every opportunity, the late Ibironke advised on how to raise the standards of legal education in the country even higher. Through the Council of Legal Education, he ensured that universities comply with certain basic criteria in the training of law graduates who would ultimately come to his school where they will perfect the skills of lawyering. He pontificated on all aspects of the law in Nigeria and whenever he spoke on the subject, everyone listened because in many respects, he had become the oracle on issues bordering on legal education in the country.

It is commonly the view that if Ibironke were still to remain as the Director of the school, the enormous hardship that was inflicted on many of their students following the haphazard movement of the school to Abuja would have been impossible. It is commonly doubted if the school would have been split into the number of campuses that we have now, as no student would have accepted to go to a campus in which Ibironke is not presiding. So crucial the man became in the training of lawyers in the country that “Ibironke” became another name for the Law School. Now he is gone. What a loss!

The late Chief Ibironke will be missed by everybody that has anything to do with the practice of law in Nigeria.   He was indeed a hero, a legal giant and a respected teacher with countless admirers. The nation was richly blessed by the life of the late Chief Ibironke and with his death, a huge loss.

Curled from Daily Independence, October 27, 2003