President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has sworn in Justice Kudirat Kekere-ekun as the substantive 23rd Chief Justice of Nigeria.
The swearing-in ceremony, which was held in the Council Chambers of the State House, followed the confirmation of Justice Kekere-ekun by the Senate last Wednesday.
The ceremony was witnessed by three of Kekere-ekun’s predecessors, including Justice Alooma Muktar, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, Justice Walter Onnoghen, and Justice Olukayode Ariwoola.
Also in the Chambers are her family members as well as the other justices of the Supreme Court.
Meet Kekere-ekun
Two years before Nigeria’s independence, in the heart of London, the United Kingdom, Kudirat Motonmori Olatokunbo Kekere-Ekun, a name that would resonate through the corridors of Nigeria’s justice system, was born.
But her roots are in Lagos, where both her parents are indigenes. Born on May 7, 1958. she is the eldest of eleven siblings in a polygamous home. Her father, Hassan Adisa Babatunde Fasinro, was also a lawyer and politician, while her mother, Winifred Layiwola Ogundimu (née Savage), is a UK-trained nurse.
Fasinro, popularly called HAB, was a senator representing Lagos in the second republic and the first clerk of the Lagos City Council. Having a father who is a lawyer may have influenced Kekere-Ekun’s passion for the legal profession.
She commenced her secondary education in 1970 at Queens College, Lagos, and studied law at the University of Lagos from 1977 to 1980. She then proceeded to the Nigerian Law School and was called to the bar in July 1981. After that, she underwent the compulsory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) from 1981–82 at the ministry of justice in Benin City, Edo (then Bendel state).
Upon completing her service year, she proceeded to the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), obtaining a master’s degree in law in 1983.
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