Retired Judge of the International Court of Justice at the Hague,His Excellency, Judge Bola Abdul Jabaar Ajibola,has revealed how he informed the late Alaafin of Oyo,Oba Lamidi Adeyemi of his selection as the Alaafin of Oyo to succeed the late Oba Gbadegesin Ladigbolu in 1970.
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According to the jurist, the lot fell on him to perform the task as he was sent to him(Late Oba Adeyemi) in Lagos, where he was an insurance executive, to invite him to where the news was broken to him.
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As fate would have it,45 years later, the judge himself an Owu Prince, also nominated the late monarch , to be the Chancellor of the Crescent University,he founded after retiring from the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
Late Alaafin (r) and Ajibola
The Founder and Proprietor of Crescent University, Abeokuta, His Excellency Judge Bola AbdulJabbar Ajibola SAN, KBE, LL.D, D.Litt, CFR and the entire University community have mourned the passing of the institution’s former Chancellor.
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In a statement made in Abeokuta, Judge Ajibola praised the exempary life of the late Alaafin and the courage, intellectual depth and wisdom with which he ruled as Oyo’s longest reining monarch in history – a rule of more than five decades that saw the Alaafin not just as a leading monarch in Yoruba land, but also as one of the leading monarchs the nation relied upon for leadership and wise counsel.
He commended the service of the Alaafin as Chancellor of Crescent University, a position which he occupied in the year 2015.
Judge Ajibola commiserated with the Royal Family, the people Oyo, the Yorubas and Nigerians in general over the loss of the great monarch. He prayed for the repose of the late Oba Lamidi Adeyemi’s soul, adding that his legacies of good leadership shall remain a reference point in history.
