Funke Aboyade
6 August 2007
column
Lagos — Due to space constraints, my column this week will be rather short; however I'd like to comment on Covenant's University's disclosure that graduating students have to undergo a compulsory HIV test. In the addition, graduating female students will have to undergo a compulsory pregnancy test. The legal and constitutional issues have been raised and properly addressed by our cover stories this week so there is no point rehashing them here.
One or two questions for Covenant University though. In the event that a graduating student is found to be HIV positive, what should he do? This, bearing in mind that he has otherwise completed his graduation requirements after four or five rigorous years of study. Should he proceed to hang himself?
Question two: Should a graduating female student test positive for pregnancy and knowing full well she will be denied graduation proceed to terminate that pregnancy? Would the University rather that? Form over substance? And supposing she were married, what then? And supposing the hapless female student had been made pregnant by another graduating male student, does he carry the can as well?
A third question actually: Is HIV/Aids only contracted through sexual immorality? Since the answer to that is no, what then becomes of a graduating student who has got the virus through other means?
I received the news of the death a week and a half ago of retired Court of Appeal Justice, Adenekan Ademola with a measure of sadness even though he died at a reasonably ripe old age. When I started out in law practice in the mid-1980s, Justice Nekan Ademola was at the Lagos Court of Appeal and was I think, the Presiding Justice then. I appeared before him on several occasions and what struck me then was his unfailing courtesy to counsel who appeared before him. He was always firm but courteous, even to green horns like myself.
One wishes that some of our Judges and Justices who seem to derive pleasure from being unnecessarily rude to counsel would borrow a leaf from this. Mutual respect between the Bar and Bench should be the rule in all instances. I know that some counsel can test the court's patience sorely and get on the Judge's last nerves but still, there is absolutely no need to put counsel down.
Justice Nekan Ademola had a distinguished heritage, descending as he was from Egba royalty. More, his father, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola was the first indigenous Chief Justice of Nigeria. His son, Honourable Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court sitting in Kano, has continued that tradition of going to the Bench.
I last saw Justice 'Nekan Ademola at a legal function at MUSON, Lagos about a year ago and remember being surprised that he had arrived alone and was confidently getting about on his own (he having lost his sight). I went up to him to introduce myself and was pleasantly surprised that he remembered me. Again, he was extremely courteous and pleasant, the same hallmarks he'd had when sitting as Justice of the Court of Appeal.
Within this week's LAW are just two of the many tributes written about him.
May his soul rest in peace.
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