As Ondo Chief Judge retires …

It isn’t vanity that the month of January leads eleven others in global calendaring. It’s not merely that the Romans choose to deify Janus, after whom the first month is christened, as their god of doorways and passages. He who must discern must dig with diligence or, better still, multiply his intellection. After all, Janus is depicted with two faces on opposite sides of his head. It underlines the impression that some creatures bear the extra contents that distinguish them from the common. Janus, in the Roman annals, is reputed as unusually powerful to the extent that Numa is said to have dedicated to it the covered passage at Rome, near the Forum, which is usually called the Temple of Janus. This passage was opened in war and closed in peace.

Why alluding to Janus?  Why the iconic portrait or representations of Janus and why such an allusive height? Why do an epic, heroic narrative? The sterling stature of a colossus, Honourable Justice Olasehinde Kumuyi, a man whose professionalism and personality amount  to a gigantic creature, compels such a task.  I have deliberately decided to measure Justice Kumuyi in the image of a colossus, colossus being a description that was especially applied to certain famous statues in antiquity, as the Colossus of Nero in Rome, the Colossus of Apollo at Rhodes, Colossus of Rhodes, or as may be equated or represented elsewhere.

It is in my genuine gauge of giants in Nigeria’s legal space that I qualify the judge as one huge titan whose image looms so large that a huge bronze statue in his honour, like that of the sun god-Helios  which was built around 285 BC and that stood beside the harbour entrance on the Island of Rhodes for about 50 years before it was toppled by an earthquake, would not overstate his rank. While we harbour the hope that such titanic representation of Justice Kumuyi happens before we go, here is telling of a hero’s deeds that should be of consequence to many.

The Judge by competent standards, is a hero; an illustrious man, veteran of the bar and an accomplished personality of the bench who is supposed to be exalted even as he leaves office as the Chief Judge of Ondo State.

Dr Kayode Ajulo

Abuja