I knew Godwin Mogbeyi Boyo very well. He was my dad’s 1st cousin from the maternal side. When my dad was a Judge in Benin and Warri after we left Lagos, he was in our house almost every day. They were very close until the Boyo/Atake saga.
As you may know I have written endlessly on Boyo and he is part of the subject matter of a book that I wrote. I cannot say all in such a public forum as this. But what transpired before Justice J. Omo-Eboh, husband to Modupe Omo-Eboh, J if you knew Boyo is typical of Boyo. Confident, the happening lawyer of his day and oozed with arrogance not necessarily in a bad way. Cannot say more than that at this stage.
Let us put it this way for simplicity. Godwin Boyo was a highly successful lawyer and the first non-Yoruba man to be the President of the Nigerian Bar Association. He was in the newspapers every day.
In those days, we had three main newspapers. The Daily Times, The Nigerian Observer and The New Nigerian. Boyo was covered daily as President of the NBA in those papers.
After the great FRA Williams, he seemed to be the ‘next happening’ lawyer of his day. Not to say that there were no other great lawyers of that day and period. Imagine he had become President of the NBA after people like Sapara Williams, Eric Moore, Sir Adeyomo Alakija, EJ Alex Taylor, (father of the great JIC Taylor), Jubrin Martins, Peter Thomas, FRA Williams. All those preceding Williams as President should have all been KCs or QCs but for Colonial discrimination against black lawyers.
Things had changed that was why FRA became a QC before those great names that I reeled out. So Boyo became President after all these eminent lawyers and top lawyers. The first non-Yoruba.
The allegedly perceived arrogance may have shown in his advocacy. No doubt he was a good lawyer. But with what Boyo achieved as a non-Yoruba at the time, he can of course be forgiven for his allegedly perceived arrogance. He was the first non-Yoruba to be President of the NBA.
Before him the main lawyer that reigned in the Midwest was Asifo Egbe father of Webber Egbe QC, SAN (former Chairman of the Body of Benchers. Sometime AG Western Region and AG Mid-Western Region) and Fred Egbe. Asifo Egbe was the first Itsekiri man and the first non-Yoruba man to qualify as a lawyer.
The Yorubas were the first with several lawyers before Asifo Egbe came along. He qualified long before, the first Ibo Lawyer Sir Louis Mbanefo. Asifo Egbe qualified in the 1920s. 1925.
You can see where Godwin Mogbeyi Boyo was coming from. So as someone who had national recognition and was a prominent lawyer in the Midwest, he had a certain air about him even in Court.
But Judges of those days were very strict and no-nonsense people. That was why J Omo-Eboh, J tried to clip his wings. Unfortunately, too, it led to a major crisis between him and my father that I need not repeat here. It is historical and now academic.
