The passing of Professor Alfred Bandele Kasunmu, SAN invites a question our profession will be asking in the days ahead: was he the first to transit from academia to legal practice? The answer becomes clean once we separate three distinct crossings, each with its own pioneer.
The first crossing is from the academy to public legal office, and it belongs to Taslim Olawale Elias. From scholarship he went to office and then to the Bench: independent Nigeria’s first Attorney General in 1960, Chief Justice of Nigeria in 1972, and ultimately Judge and later President of the International Court of Justice. But Elias never stood at the private bar; office and the Bench were his destination, not advocacy.
The second crossing, often overlooked, is from the academy to the rank of Silk itself, and it belongs to Professor Ben Nwabueze, made a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 1978, expressly on the strength of his published works. His, however, was a scholar’s Silk: he remained, in vocation and identity, a man of the academy and of public affairs.
The third crossing is the one that belongs to Professor Kasunmu, and the record states it precisely: he resigned his chair at the University of Lagos in 1978, founded Prof. A. B. Kasunmu Chambers in the same year, took Silk in January 1979, and built a celebrated full time practice, counsel to the Central Bank of Nigeria, the NDIC and leading banks among others. He was, therefore, the first professor of law to cross fully and permanently into private advocacy of renown, chambers, briefs and courtroom.
One qualification completes the picture. Even Kasunmu’s crossing was bridged, not leapt: he was a consultant in the chambers of the late Chief F. R. A. Williams, SAN from 1972 to 1978, and served as Attorney General of Lagos State from 1975 to 1978. The true contrast with Elias is that office was Elias’s destination and merely Kasunmu’s bridge; the private bar was where Kasunmu was going all along.
On this footing, each of the three keeps his own first: Elias, first to the summit of public legal office; Nwabueze, first academic to wear Silk; Kasunmu, first professor to make renowned private advocacy his life’s vocation. May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace.
Eyimofe Atake, SAN, PhD (Cantab)
