Although he was born on the 14th of July, 1855 in Sierra Leone, Sapara-Williams had his roots in Ijeshaland (he was of the Ilesha subgroup of the Yorubas, found mainly in Osun and some parts of Oyo State, he fondly referred to his native hometown as Ijesha wa meaning ‘our Ijesha’). He was the elder sibling of Dr. Oguntola Odunbaku Sapara, a well-known medical doctor.
In 1871, he attended CMS Grammar School and later, the Wesley College, Sheffield, United Kingdom. Sapara-Williams was a law student at the Inner Temple, London, United Kingdom and after graduation, he was back in Nigeria where he started his practice on the 13th of January, 1888 in Lagos State (then the Lagos Colony).
On the 17th of November, 1879, he stamped his name in the annals of history as the first Nigerian lawyer when he was called to the English Bar. As an advocate, Sapara-Williams clearly distinguished himself and his knowledge of the customary law was indeed breath-taking. On the 30th of January, 1888, he joined as a member of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and on the 30th of August 1888, (124 years ago), he enrolled at the Supreme Court, Lagos as the first Nigerian barrister. It will also interest you to know that from 1900 to 1915, he was the Chairman of the NBA, which remains till date, one of Nigeria’s most influential bodies.
It must however be noted that even though Sapara Williams was a pioneer in the field, there were some other contemporaries who also practiced with him. But owing to the very low number of lawyers as at that time, people with no legal training but were a bit literate and had a passing knowledge of the English Law were regularly chosen to work as attorneys.
Sapara-Williams handled popular cases such as Cole vs Cole and the Attorney-General of Southern Nigeria vs John Holt and Company. These were some of the most celebrated cases of the time and he also practiced law in Accra, Ghana.
Sapara-Williams also dabbled into politics and left his mark. He was the one who proposed that the ‘the present boundary between the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria be readjusted by bringing the southern portion into Southern Nigeria, so that the entire tribes of the Yoruba-speaking people should be under one and the same administration.’ Although Lord Lugard, the Governor-General did not support this move, his input to the final conclusion was more than slight.
He was also instrumental to the decolonization of the country. In 1905, he was in the United Kingdom where he made various proposals to the Colonial Office to make the necessary changes in their policies. Among others, he called for the construction of a training college for teachers in Lagos. And later, he also questioned the Seditious Offences Ordinances of 1909, which muzzled the press and clamped down on critics of the colonial authorities.
He stated that: ‘Freedom of the Press is the great Palladium of British liberty … Sedition is a thing incompatible with the character of the Yoruba people, and has no place in their constitution … Hyper-sensitive officials may come tomorrow who will see sedition in every criticism and crime in every mass meeting’. Although the British still went ahead with the ordinance, making it a law, his voice was already heard.
His political and nationalist struggles did not end there. He allied with Herbert Macaulay to start the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society in Lagos on the 30th of August, 1910. This gave Macaulay a stronghold in attacking the British imperialists.
Death came knocking on the 15th of March, 1915 and according to another Nigerian legal luminary, Pa Tunji Gomez, Sapara-Williams was buried at the Ajele Stadium (which was then used as a burial ground)
Acknowledgement: Abiyamo, Naija Archives, Tun Henry
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