Chief Samuel Obakayode "Kayode" Eso, CON, CFR (born 18 September 1925 – 16 November 2012) was a prominent Nigerian

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

. He served as a Justice of the

Supreme Court of Nigeria The Supreme Court of Nigeria (SCN) is the highest court in Nigeria, and is located in the Central District, Abuja, in what is known as the Three Arms Zone, so called due to the proximity of the offices of the Presidential Complex, the National Ass ...

Early life

Samuel Obakayode Eso was born on 18 September 1925 at

Ilesa Ilesa () is a historic city located in Osun State, southwest Nigeria; it is also the name of the capital of a historic state-kingdom(also known as Ijesha) centred around that town as the capital . The state is ruled by a monarch bearing the ti ...

, a city in what was then the Nigeria Protectorate. Both of his parents, Emmanuel Dada and Rebecca Omotola Eso, belonged to prominent

chieftaincy A tribal chief, chieftain, or headman is a leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies There is no definition for "tribe". The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Af ...

families amongst the

Ijesha The Ijesha/Ilesha (written as Ìjẹ̀ṣà in Yoruba orthography) are one of the major sub-ethnicity of the Yorubas of West Africa. Ilesha is the largest town and historic cultural capital of the Ijesha people, and is home to a large kingdom o ...

s. Emmanuel's father, Chief Ifaturoti, held the

Eso The European Southern Observatory is an astronomical research organisation. ESO may also refer to: *Employee stock option (also: executive stock option) *'' Ether Saga Odyssey'', a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game *''The Elde ...

chieftaincy title, and it was from this title that their family's surname was derived. He attended local schools in Nigeria before going on to

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

, where he obtained bachelor's and master's degrees in

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

with a specialization in

Legal science Legal science is one of the main components in civil law tradition (after Roman law, canon law, commercial law, and the legacy of the revolutionary period). Legal science is primarily the creation of German legal scholars of the middle and late n ...

in 1953 and 1956 respectively. He then went on to train at the

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...

in London, where he was subsequently called to the bar.

Law career

In March 1965, he became the acting Judge of the High Court of Western Nigeria and a few years later, he was appointed to the bench of the Court of Appeal of Western Nigeria as a Justice. In January 1978, he was appointed Chief Judge of the Oyo State Judiciary, a position he held until September 1990, when he was appointed to the bench of the

. Professor Yemi Akinseye George, SAN and Professor J. F. Ade Ajayi's book, titled ''The Making of A Judge'', narrates the chronological episodes in the contemporary history of Kayode Eso's judicial activism. He is one of the members of the 8-man panel of judges at the

that presided over the Awolowo v. Shagari case, in which Chief

Obafemi Awolowo Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo (6 March 1909 – 9 May 1987) was a Nigerian politician who served as the first Premier of the Western region of Nigeria. He was known as one of the key figure towards Nigeria's independence movement from 1957 ...

's petition challenged the declaration of Alhaji

Shehu Shagari Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari (; 25 February 1925 – 28 December 2018) was a Nigerian politician who was the first democratically elected president of Nigeria, after the transfer of power by Military Head of State of Nigeria, military head of sta ...

as the president-elect of the country after the 11 August 1979 presidential election. The court ruled that "Sheu Shagari won two-thirds of the total votes cast, having polled a total tally of 16.8 million with 11.9 million votes ahead of Obafemi Awolowo who polled a total tally of 4.9 million."

Personal life

Chief Eso married Helen Aina (née Agidee) of Akungbene in 1954. They would go on to have two children together, Funmilayo Eso Williams (deceased, Feb. 2021) and Olumide Eso. Chief Eso died on 16 November 2012 at the age of 87.

Memberships

*Member,

Nigerian Bar Association The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is a non-profit, umbrella professional association of lawyers admitted to the Bar by the Council of Legal Education in Nigeria. It is engaged in the promotion and protection of human rights, the rule of law and ...

*Member,

International Bar Association The International Bar Association (IBA), founded in 1947, is a bar association of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. The IBA in 2018 had a membership of more than 80,000 individual lawyers and 190 bar associati ...

*Member,

Nigerian Body of Benchers The Nigerian Body of Benchers is a professional body concerned with the admission of successful candidates into the Legal Profession at the Nigerian Law School Bar Final Examination. Members of the body are called '' Benchers''. The body also re ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eso, Kayode 1925 births 2012 deaths Nigerian jurists People from Ilesha Yoruba lawyers Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Supreme Court of Nigeria justices