A former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Richard Akinjide, has died in his Ibadan home in Oyo State.
Mr Akinjide was brought dead to the University College Hospital, Ibadan, spokesperson of the hospital, Tonye Akinrinola, said.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria, it was gathered, had been sick for three years.
He was said to have passed on around 1 am on Tuesday.
The late Akinjide served as a chieftain in the Olubadan of Ibadan’s court of clan nobles.
Under his watch as Nigeria’s attorney-general, the country temporarily reversed execution of armed robbers and the abolition of a decree barring exiles from returning to the country.
Born in 1930 in Ibadan, Akinjide attended St. Peter’s Primary School, Aremo in Ibadan, before proceeding to Oduduwa College, Ile-Ife from where he passed out in Grade One (Distinction, Aggregate 6).
In 1951, he travelled to the UK where he studied law at the University of London.
Akinjide also obtained a certificate in journalism. He was called to the English bar in 1955.
He was subsequently called to the Nigerian and the Gambian bar and became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) in 1978.
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he established his law firm, Akinjide & Co, soon after.
