The demise of the Honourable Justice Saka Yusuf, a week after the passage of an equally unassuming Senator Ayinla Olomoda, has, yet again, rubbed the llorin Emirate of the services of one of her most distinguished elder-statesmen and fearless patriots. He was a dedicated and reliable community leader and a polished model who afforded the Ilorin Emirate Community selfless services in many spheres since the early 1950s.
The late erudite Jurist was raised by one of the most powerful Princes of Ilorin, Alhaji Saidu Alao Omo-Oloni, an uncle to the 9th Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Zulukarnaini Gambari (1959-1992). It was the late Omo-Oloni, who was the then District Head of Ballah who took young Saka Yusuf to the rural community of Ballah in the present day Asa Local Government Area of Kwara State. It was there that he was registered as one of the pioneer pupils of the Ballah Elementary School in 1943. Among his classmates at the first western educational institution in the Asa Local Government Area of “the State of Harmony” was the pioneer Grand Khadi of Kwara State, Justice Abdulkadir Orire (CON).
From Ballah, Alhaji Saka Yusuf proceeded to the then Ilorin Middle School, now known as G.S.S. Ilorin, from where he finished around 1950.
Honourable Justice Saka Yusuf, throughout his school days was not only a remarkable student who excelled in his studies but also a model in character – a trait that got him appointed as the Head Boy of the 1950 set of the only public post-primary institution in the then Ilorin Province.
He was also a proficient athlete and sharp-shooting footballer enabling him to embrace fame through sporting activities.
Upon finishing his middle school training, he was offered employment into the Ilorin Provincial Authority and posted to the Emir’s Palace, Ilorin. He eventually served, and was doing very well, as the Secretary to the Emirate Council. Among his colleagues at the palace then were the late gifted orator, Alhaji Sanni Adebayo Lawal, who was the Private Secretary to Emir Sulu-Gambari and Alhaji Abdulkadir Oba Shiru who was Justice Saka Yusuf’s immediate deputy and successor at the Palace.
As a man who was determined to make it in life as a respected professional, Justice Saka Yusuf registered for the Ordinary and Advanced Levels G.C.E while still in the employ of the Palace and despite being one of the raves of the moment of Ilorin’s social scene of those days. Against all odds, he travelled to the United Kingdom in the early 1960s to pursue a degree course in Secretarial Administration which was relevant to what he was doing. But his meeting with his former teacher in London, Justice Saidu Kawu (CON) saw him changing his course to Law. This was because Justice Saidu Kawu, who also accomodated him at his London home, convinced him that he would do well as a Jurist than a Secretary, which had fascinated him.
He eventually graduated as a Lawyer and he was subsequently called to bar. He came back and continued his services to the Kwara State Government as a high-ranking administrative officer and later joined the State Judiciary. He was an assistant registrar in several divisions of the Kwara State High Court. He, thereafter, served as the Corporation Secretary and Legal Adviser of the Kwara State Printing and Publishing Corporation, the Publishers of The Herald Newspapers on establishment in 1973.
Justice Saka Yusuf was one of the patriotic professionals who made newspaper a darling of the Nigerian critical readers and opinion leaders in the 1970s. He later served as the Director of Public Prosecution of Kwara State. He was in that position till 1986 when he was deservedly appointed as a Justice of High Court of Kwara State.
In 1987, the Government of Kano State requested for his services and he was appointed a Judge of the Kano State Judiciary where he later served as the State’s Acting Chief Judge until his appointment as the Chief Judge of Kwara State in 2006. He was the Chief Judge of Kwara State till 2008 when he retired after a remarkable and challenging career.
A year after his retirement, the leadership of the foremost socio-cultural organization of the Ilorin Emirate, the Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union ( IEDPU) was entrusted on him. He was the National President of the body for four challenging years which ran between 2009 and 2013. And while on the position, Justice Saka Yusuf gave a very good account of himself, projecting, preserving and defending the corporate interests of the people of Ilorin Emirate. He laboured so hard and was able to restore the polished image of the organization which was unfortunately but arguably again exposed to ridicule by the man who succeeded him.
He served selflessly and with total and unparalleled commitment. He succeeded in battling against the anti-people urbanization law of the state to the admiration of the “helpess” people of Ilorin Emirate. His efforts also blocked the attempt to sell-off some public land across Ilorin.
Not a few were positively surprized about his principled stand on some community issues which placed him against the interest of the Kwara State Government as facilitated by the man who appointed him as the Chief Judge of the State and who also happened to be the son of his abiding long-time friend.
Every attempt to cajole and intimidate him to close his eyes against governmental excesses was resisted by that uncommon champion of the oppressed.He would say that struggling for the interest of the Ilorin Emirate had been his resolve right from the 1950s when he teamed-up with others to checkmate the “dangerous” incursion of the then Action Group of Chief Obafemi Awolowo into Ilorin and that he was among those who worked with the late Waziri of Ilorin, Dr.Abubakar Olusola Saraki, to ensure that Ilorin was not cheated in the scheme of things, particularly in the early 1970s up till the enthronement of the Second Republic.
Justice Saka Yusuf OFR used all those experiences to ensure that his tenure as the President of the IEDPU was maximized to fight and secure the interest of the Ilorin Emirate Community. He succeeded so well because he never wanted anything aside the progress of Ilorin. Among what the late Jurist would also be remembered for was mobilization of his contemporaries and the Ilorin Emirate Community, at large, to ensure that the Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin and the Kwara State College of Arabic and Islamic Legal Studies, Ilorin, remain functional against the interest of some powerful stakeholders who wanted those schools faced-out for God’s know reasons.
His leadership of the union would for long be used as a yardstick to measure the performance of those coming after him as the President of the influential body and succeeding elders of the community to always be mindful of what history would say about them while they are alive and when they eventually left the departure lounge of the earth.
Justice Saka Yusuf OFR was a man who saw the office as an avenue of giving back to the community. He never saw it as a means of enriching himself or promoting personal interest or those of his children. Monies freely given to him in privacy by politicians and public office holders which some others would have kept to themselves were promptly paid into the account of the Union to the consternation of some members who felt he was laying a “difficult precedent”.
Discerning readers may also be astonished to know of his rejection of a quarter of a million arranged for him to augment the cost of repair of a portion of his house which got burnt while he was the president of the union. Every effort to cajole or persuade him to accept the offer was turned down as he explained that the satisfaction he derived from serving the community at that level was enough for him.
Stakeholders who had expected him to close his eyes against the infractions of the political leadership of the state under the control of Dr. Bukola Saraki, the son of his friend, Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki who was also his benefactor were surprised that the celebrated Jurist gave no damn as what mattered to him was neither personal interest nor friendship but the welfare of the ordinary people which he believed should be the subsisting interest of the privileged class.
Honourable Justice Saka Yusuf’s intimate friends included the late Alhaji Ibrahim Ade Yusuf, the late Alhaji Akanbi Oniyangi, the late Alhaji Yakubu Amori Gobir and, of course, Alhaji Safi’i Usuf as well as General Abdullahi Mohammed.
Justice Yusuf , who died on Monday and buried the following day, would be remembered for been an honest, upright, humble courageous, selfless and generous personality who did everything to contribute his quota to the development of his community and the nation at large throughout his public service career. May Allah grant him eternal felicity.
ABUBAKAR S.IMAM IS FORMER ASSISTANT NATIONAL SECRETARY, ILORIN EMIRATE DESCENDANTS PROGRESSIVES UNION.
