Eccentric entertainer Charles Oputa, better known as Charly Boy, has confirmed the death, today, of his father, eminent jurist, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa (rtd).

News Express had earlier reported the death, at 89, of the man known as the Socrates of the Nigerian judiciary and head of the country’s only truth commission known as Oputa Panel.

The former Supreme Court Justice has been on the watch list since he was rushed to the hospital on February 14 after being struck by partial stroke.

Already, tributes have started pouring in for late Justice Oputa. Among the first to pay tribute to him is immediate past Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, who described him as the “Lord Denning of Nigeria.” His words: “If the great biographer, Plutarch were alive today to write lives by parallel, he would find no difficulty pairing Lord Alfred Denning and our own Justice Oputa. Both approached law more from jurisprudence, insisting on examining the philosophical underpinnings of different laws and interpreting them in manners to serve the needs of man and the society in the most just manner.”

Speaking further, he said the greatest service to the memory of great sages such as Oputa was to make their wisdom function actively in the society through the preservation of their legacies.

Describing him as great and courageous judge and a man imbued with sound values, the types lacking in the world of today, Obi appealed to the judiciary to use such people as case study on the way forward for the judiciary.

The former governor prayed to God to grant the Judiciary, people of Imo State, his immediate family as well as entire Nigerians the fortitude to bear the loss.

•Photo shows Justice Oputa.