Nigeria’s Soyinka pays tribute to Justice Eso

Professor Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s Nobel Literature laureate, has paid tribute to Justice Kayode Eso, the Nigerian judge who presided over his trial in the early 60s over an allegation that he had disrupted a broadcast in the old Nigerian Western region at gun point. Soyinka was also alleged to have substituted an ‘inciting statement’ against the government of Ladoke Akintola.

Justice Eso who tried Soyinka for treasonable felony returned a verdict of not guilty, saving the young Soyinka, a long spell of imprisonment.

Justice Eso, a retired Supreme Court judge died in London at the ripe age of 87.

In a tribute he titled ‘THE MYSTERY JUDGE’,also the title of the judge’s memoirs, Soyinka said, “At the feast of after-life, or wherever a table is set aside for judges of stellar integrity, there will Kayode Eso be seated, in a high place of honour.

The full text of the Tribute:

“He titled the narrative of his life on the bench: THE MYSTERY GUNMAN. For me, he has remained – The Mystery Judge.

“It is endlessly fascinating to consider that he may have changed the probable course of my existence, but this is not why I mourn him, or

pay him tribute. We bonded. That bond began without his knowledge, months before I actually stood trial in his court. It began as we monitored his phone calls – among others’ – during the Western Region crisis, and heard him resist pressure from the apex of Power urging him to dent the shield of justice. He resisted with grace, with a disarming sense of humour. Who was this judge? I wondered.

“At the feast of after-life, or wherever a table is set aside for judges of stellar integrity, there will Kayode Eso be seated, in a
high place of honour.”