Kanu Godwin Agabi at 80

ELSEWHERE, I had posited that “every age, every generation, produces an iconoclast, an eclectic, eccentric, a quirky and unusual figure, who ironically represents the measure, the values, and indeed, the essence of that age or generation and becomes the icon of that age or generation. They are not conventional persons, they are peculiar, odd, aberrant, curious, capricious, quaint, queer and even erratic. Somehow, in spite of their unusualness, they remain unusually lovable. They are unusually  unobtrusive, yet their presence is forceful.” These words are as true for that occasion as they are for Kanu Godwin Agabi, CON, SAN who turns 80 today, July 9, 2026. Kanu, or KGA, as he is fondly known to all, first came into my consciousness in 1969. He was a lanky law undergraduate at the University of Lagos and President Ogoja Provincial Students Union. In spite of the Nigerian Civil War and his studies, he and his friend, Mathew Ojong of blessed memory, went round the secondary schools in old Ogoja Province comprising the six Local Governments of today’s Cross River Central Senatorial District and the five of today’s Cross River North mobilising and motivating students for their future. His passion, energy, physical presence and oratory were captivating. I was among the young secondary students he impressed deeply. After those tours, he became unmistakable and etched on the consciousness of my generation. He was imitated in speech, in gait and in manners. He had become an idol to many of us.

He went on to become a lawyer, having been called to the Nigerian Bar along with Fidelis Ikogo Nnang in June 1972, and both chose to set up their law practices in their native Ogoja, in the footsteps of E.T. Ndoma-Egba who was to become one of the early Justices of the Court of Appeal and was the very first resident private legal practitioner in Ogoja,  Ochikry Idagbo who became a High Court Judge, the first from old Ogoja (today’s Ogoja, Bekwarra and Yala Local Governments), and Etowa Arikpo, who became Attorney General of the old Cross River State and later its Chief Judge. Fidelis Nnang briefly became Deputy Governor of the old Cross River State under the short-lived Governorship of Senator Donald Etiebet, who succeeded Dr Clement Isong in 1983, and later a High Court judge. In his law practice, he demonstrated brilliance, hard work and spartan discipline. Justice Niki Tobi, of blessed memory, then of the Court of Appeal, Enugu, once approvingly described Kanu as a ‘display case’. 

When Ndoma-Egba, Idagbo, Nnang and Arikpo left for their various elevations, Kanu took over the legal market in that part of the world, dominated and defined it. He vigorously pursued social causes on the side of the oppressed and did more of pro bono work. Philanthropy is ingrained in his DNA. He championed, as a very young lawyer, the building of a secondary school for his Ugboro community in Bekwara Local Government of Cross River State. At age 31, General Olusegun Obasanjo, then military Head of State, appointed him Chairman of NICON Insurance Corporation, then one of the country’s largest corporations. A famous insurance industry guru, Yinka Lijadu, was managing director. It was during their time that several projects were conceived and implemented, including today’s Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja. On the return of civilian rule in 1979 the newly elected  Governor of old Cross River State, comprising today’s Cross River and Akwa Ibom States, the celebrated economist and onetime Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria  Dr. Clement Nyong Isong, appointed the then thirty-three-year-old Kanu as Commissioner for Finance. Barely two years into the new assignment he resigned on principle, perhaps the only one so far to do so till date. He became famous.

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He returned to his law practice now, making more appearances in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. He also became concerned that my generation was becoming dependent on politicians and politics for their livelihood to the detriment of their potentials, that it had lost the pioneering and entrepreneurial spirit of our forebears. He started a movement called The Third Choice, with me as Secretary, to promote self-reliance and the innate capabilities of the individual. The movement provided scholarships for students at home and abroad, supported young professionals and businesses with remarkable success. Today, beneficiaries of that intervention are successful men and women in various endeavours. Then tragedy struck. His five-year-old daughter, Akpana, his spitting image, suddenly died and Kanu went into depression, losing interest in so many things, including his beloved law practice. It took counseling from his mentor, Justice E.T. Ndoma-Egba, conspiracies by Paul  Erokoro and me, who had joined him in the practice, a new strength and meaning in the Christian faith to steer him back. Kanu now read the Bible voraciously and it was common to find three versions spread in front of him at the same time. He recovered with new strength and became very spiritual.

It was not a surprise that he became the third Senior Advocate of Nigeria from Cross River State, having been elevated to the rank in September 1997, thus keeping the eminent company of Dr Okoi Arikpo, Foreign Minister throughout the regime of General Yakubu Gowon and Chief Effiom Ekong, Minister (then called Federal Commissioner) for Trade under General Muritala Mohammed’s administration, and under whom Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, who became Chief Justice of Nigeria, practised and cut his professional teeth. I joined Kanu in his practice in Ogoja immediately after my National Youth Service in July 1979. Paul Erokoro soon joined, followed by Greg Ngaji. Shortly, the practice opened offices in Ikom with Paul running it, and Calabar with me at that end. Greg remained in the Ogoja office. Many others were to join the practice. The alumni of that practice would today conveniently form a school.

Kanu and I were Commissioners in the Old Cross River State, quickly followed by Paul and Greg.

Kanu, Greg and I were to become Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Kanu became a two-time Attorney General of the Federation under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s civilian presidency, the only Nigerian with that record to my knowledge, and held other portfolios. Kanu, Paul and I became Senior Advocates of Nigeria. He has since produced many more Senior Advocates, Judges of various jurisdictions, including a Chief Justice of The Gambia, commissioners, top public servants, including a founding Executive Secretary of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, corporate executives, politicians, lawyers of note, etc. His professional children have since begotten their own professional children. Biologically and professionally, he has become a grandfather, a very proud one too. His son and replica, Ikani Agabi, is today a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in his own right.

He surprisingly entered politics on the country’s return to politics in 1999, contesting the Governorship primaries against the youthful Donald Duke who eventually emerged as Governor of Cross River State. President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Kanu as his first Attorney General and Minister for Justice. He was redeployed as Minister of Solid Minerals, and later as Special Adviser on Ethics and Good Governance. He returned as Attorney General and Minister of Justice making him and Mohammed Bello Adoke as the only ones to have held that esteemed office twice.

Like every mortal, he would have had his failings, regrets, missed opportunities and missed turns but life is measured on the average, on the things done and not only on the things not done, not by the length of our lives but the life in our years, not by what we received but by what we gave. He is a man of contradictions. Kanu is the only big man in Nigeria who is called by his first name by all, young and old, high and lowly, friends and enemies. He loves books and music, particularly the soukous and jazz genres. Music plays every minute from his home from a now ancient reel-to-reel device, but he has never danced. I asked him once if he had ever danced in his life and he said he could not remember. Spartan and austere, he indulges others, though he does not suffer fools gladly.

His has been a remarkable life of love and service to family, community, nation, humanity and God. It has been a life of grace and humility. He taught us many things, small things like hard work, sacrifice, discipline, self-confidence, charity, prudence, empathy and focus, that we must succeed in spite of others, that if you hear negative things people say about you, then you are not sufficiently concentrating on the task at hand. He also taught us big things like lawn tennis and chess and the love of Congo music and jazz.

As he turns eighty, he is not getting old, though the joints rebel and refuse to take his orders and the bones groan, and he now has the inevitable bent. He is just getting better and wiser, a legend and a living ancestor. We celebrate Kanu, we thank God for who and what he has been to too many of us for his generosity, humanity and his life, and pray that God grants him many more peaceful years in good health of body and mind. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KANU. CONGRATULATIONS

•Ndoma-Egba (SAN), three-term senator, Leader of the Seventh Senate, former Chairman  of NDDC and Agabi’s first junior/partner in a defunct law firm, is currently Chairman and Pro Chancellor, Federal University, Oye Ekiti