Bamidele Aturu MY MENTOR and LEADER was a RARE NATIONAL TREASURE Nurudeen Ogbara

Bamidele Francis Aturu was not just a lawyer but a patriot extraordinaire. He was my mentor, leader, brother, friend and colleague. He was generous, very accommodating, broad-minded and very cerebral. He was on top of our class both at Ife and in the Law School despite the extremely inclement academic environment and hostile political landscape dominated and populated by military dictators of the yesteryears.

He co-founded the pace-setter political cum intellectual group at Ife and gave it the requisite responsible, responsive and purposeful leadership that continue to make impact on the primus inte pares campus African South of the Sahara and North of River Limpopo nearly two decades after leaving the campus. 

My mentor and leader was a poet, a thinker, a writer, a mobilizer, a physicist, a teacher, a researcher, a scholar, a social scientist, a prolific author, an activist, an administrator and a progressive lawyer par excellence. Very deep, insightful, analytic, scientific, perspicacious, creative, thoughtful, considerate, calculative, multi-talented and strategic, BF was always available to inspire and motivate his colleagues and who ever needed to be urged. In fact, words are ineffable to characterize this rare, generous, able, affable and unique intellectual and philosopher. 

He was always sacrificing his time, energies, sweat and resources for the collective interests. Aturu like Frantz Fanon, believed that we are nothing on earth if we are not, first of all, slaves of a cause, the cause of the people, the cause of justice, the cause of liberty. Thus, though he was a national treasure yet BF was a faithful and relentless slave to honourable values and causes.

His circle of friends knows no bound – from the top class to the low class. In fact, the Honourable Justice Samson Uwaifo, CON; Alhaji Ibrahim Abdullahi, SAN, CON (former Hon. Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice); former Presidents of the NBA and Life Benchers not limited to legal giants like OCJ Okocha, Esq. SAN JP; Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, SAN; Rotimi Akeredolu, Esq., SAN; Professors Itse Sagay, SAN; Ademola Popoola; Bolaji Owasonye; Ayo Atsenuwa; Lanre Fagbohun; Oladipo Fashina and several others are, like me, yet to recover from the devastating shock his untimely transition to greater glory had occasioned but who are we to question the decision of the Supreme Being who knows best and has accordingly called him home. 

Aturu’s contributions to the development of law, justice, justice administration, the legal profession and the Nigerian society are quite monumental and indelible. His membership of the Osun State Truth and Reconciliation Commission, like many other bodies I am aware of, was a very distinguished, productive, memorable and salutary one.

His inputs into the new Fundamental Rights Enforcement Procedure Rules, expansion of the frontiers of human rights provisions in Nigeria, the National Industrial Court Act, National Industrial Court rules, the Administration of Justice Law in Lagos State and the struggle against cannibalisation of the Nigerian Bar Association are too impactful not be forgotten many years to come.

We take consolation in the fact that his life, albeit short yet was garnished with a lot of robust successes and achievements which are neither ignorable nor can be pushed aside whatsoever and howsoever. Here lies the immortality of Bamidele Francis Aturu. I congratulate my friend and sister, Mrs. Adebimpe Francis Aturu, and the children in particular and the extended Bamidele Francis Aturu families – biological, professional, ideological and religious – for the befitting solidarity even in death accorded this uncommon patriot and national asset. May the Gracious GOD continue to give the families the fortitude and equanimity with which bear the painful and irreplaceable death. Adieu BF, Baba!

•Nurudeen Ogbara writes from Lagos. He can be reached via lawyerogbara@gmail.com. Photo shows late Bamidele Aturu.