The Pioneer Chairman of the lndependent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (lCPC), Justice Mustapha Akanbi, has passed on at the age of 85.
Akanbi, who was a former President of the Court of Appeal and first Wakili of Ilorin, died in the early hours of Sunday at his GRA residence in Ilorin, after a brief illness.
He will be buried on Sunday (today) afternoon according to Islamic rites.
A close associate of the late jurist and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner for Nasarawa State, Dr AbdulRahman Ajidagba, confirmed the death in a text message to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ilorin on Sunday.
Also one of the sons of the late octogenarian and a professor of law at the University of Ilorin, Mohammad Akanbi, in an interview with NAN, confirmed the death of the former lCPC Chairman.
Already the GRA residence of the late jurist has begun playing host to hundreds of sympathisers to pay their last respect to the first Wakili of Ilorin.
Born on September 11, 1932, in Accra, Ghana, Justice Akanbi, was appointed the ICPC chairman by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000 and served until 2005.
He obtained a scholarship to study law at the Institute of Administration, now Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He then went for further legal studies in the United Kingdom.
He was called to the English Bar in 1963 and was called to the Nigerian Bar in January 1964. He joined the Ministry of Justice and became a Senior State Counsel in 1968.
In 1969 he set up a private practice in Kano. In 1974 he was appointed a judge of the Federal Revenue Court, and in January 1977 he was elevated to the Court of Appeal Bench.
In 1992 he was made President of the Nigerian Court of Appeal, a position he held until retiring in 1999.
