TRIBUTE TO JUSTICE OKOI IKPI ITAM; CHIEF JUDGE OF CROSS RIVER STATE
By SENATOR VICTOR NDOMA-EGBA OFR, CON, SAN
The day man unravels the mystery of life and death that day man becomes Divinity. That day will certainly not come as matters of life and death will forever remain in God’s province exclusively because He is the owner and giver of life and He takes it as He pleases. As mortals we can only ponder on the subjects in the firm knowledge that once there is life in our corporeal world there must be death. Death in essence, though terminating life, is a consequence of life.
Today, we mournfully and tearfully assemble to ponder on the death, and life, of the Honourable Justice Okoi Ikpi Itam, Chief Judge of Cross River State who died in office on the 19th of March 2017 at the age of 62 years, the second Chief Judge of Cross River State to die in office after the Honourable Justice Emmanuel E.E. Effanga. Death is like rain that must drop on every roof.
The Holy Writ says “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die….” Ecclesiastes 3.1 For Justice Itam he has had his time to be born, and now his time to die. We will celebrate his worthy life, a life of love, service, sacrifice to family, humanity, community and the Almighty, his service to his profession, the Law, a profession he was he was passionate about and which gave him definition, and his service to the Judiciary. We also mourn his loss, a huge loss to his family, his friends, his community, State, profession, the Judiciary, the country and humanity at large. The death of a loved one, or someone we know is a sober opportunity to reflect on our own lives, and indeed our own deaths, an immutable certainty, the futility, vanity, emptiness or meaninglessness of life .This reflection should lead us to reconciliation with God and fellow man and woman .What is the meaning of life?
Again let me resort to the Bible.
“What does the worker gain from his toil?
I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has
made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set
eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom
what God has done from the beginning to the end.
know that that there is nothing better than for men to
do good while they live.” Ecclesiastes 3. 9-12.
As faithful mortals we can only but accept Justice Itam’s death as God’s will.
Jusice Itam was not just a friend, he was a brother. I recall our undergraduate years and his visits to me in the University of Lagos and mine to him at the Enugu Campus of the University of Nigeria. In 1975 he represented Nigeria in the Philip Jesuit International Law Competition in New York, USA, a competition that attracts the best undergraduate students of international law worldwide and participants would have won their national contests. .On his way to New York he had spent the night with me in my hostel room. Winning the national competition was a feat and he had become a celebrity. He inspired my friends to take part in subsequent national competitions.
I remember our years as young lawyers, the mutual visits, sharing our dreams of the future, trying to define our professional personae and our roles in society. He was a role model to the younger ones to whom he was” Lobito”. He was colourful. He understood the Law deeply as he did the culture and traditions of his Yakurr people and became an adviser to the Obol Lopon of Ugep at a very early age. His understanding of mechanical devises was even more remarkable. I recall how he spent his weekends dismantling car engines and building them back up. He single handedly converted his Volkswagen Beetle car into a sensational sports car
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