Spaaco The Silk!

I have just been informed that my former Fellow Barristers Chambers-Rat– Babatunde Ajibade (Phd Kings College London, yes for tis he indeed) also known by other Bar buddies as Spaaco has just been elevated to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria -equivalent to Queens Counsel. http://allafrica.com/stories/200710310470.html

I harken back to our days as grunt Barristers at Bentley Edu and Co Lagos and in particular that fateful day in July 1991, when we left Court together in his old battered 1977 model Peugeot 504 and my only slightly less battered 1978 model Honda Accord and started a pub-crawl at 12 noon that ended at 11pm, with my taking off for dear life en-route to what he vainly believed was a further change of Pub venue. There were several other like instances, which I shall not recount for my own self-respect. I need to make clear that we didn't simply bum off from work, but actually had the day off work as part of our obligations during National service but had gone into work nonetheless.

Simply put we were part of a group of young but extremely hard-working young Lawyers at Bentley Edu and Co, under the eccentric, inspirational and bloody marvellous leadership of Anthony George-Ikoli SAN now Attorney-General of Bayelsa State in Nigeria (which by the way is in the centre of the Niger Delta militancy, if anyone can Tony can, nuff said), Many evenings were spent at Akuro House sometimes till midnight working on briefs and several long demised bottles of Gulder. Come on, I mean we had after all been called to the Bar, hence we had to fulfil the demands of our calling.

We last saw at the Hilton in Abuja in 2005, where we shared a couple of glasses of – Orange Juice.... subsquent to his having finished a game of...shock horror- Tennis! The man was now married with kids and a consummate family man and establishment figure- fairplay its called growing up. He now heads his family practice founded by his dad, the venerable S.P.A. Ajibade, a legendary figure at the Nigerian Corporate Bar. He also works with his wife Andrea- who's British and an English Barrister- who heads the firm's Oil and Gas Practice Group. Gosh how things change.

He steadily established himself as a tenacious, dedicated and extremely thorough Commercial Litigator and Arbitrator over the years, appearing in several land-mark cases in Nigeria, resulting in his attaining the prestigious rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)- no mean feat, judging by the exacting standards required to attain the elevation.

Anyway I shall this evening raise my glass of Cranberry Juice (our Lager lout days firmly behind us) to Spaaco- the King of Boys and many congratulations to a truly briliant Lawyer and a really nice guy.

Ps/ Spaaco has now been sworn in and I have finally obtained a photo of the Learned Silk (first on the left).