Egbert Udo Udoma

Sir Egbert Udo Udoma (21 June 1917 – 2 February 1998) was a lawyer and justice of the Nigerian Supreme Court. He was Chief Justice of Uganda from 1963 to 1969. He spent 13 years as a judge on the Supreme Court of Nigeria and was chairman of the Constituent Assembly from 1977 to 1978. He was one of the founding fathers of Nigeria. Sir Egbert Udo Udoma was one of the first black Africans to earn a PhD in Law in 1944 from Oxford University. He was a devoted Methodist and a holder of Knight of John Wesley (KJW).

Life

He was born in the Ibibio area of Akwa Ibom State and attended Methodist College, Uzuakoli. After completing his secondary education, he proceeded abroad to study at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD) with the support of his community and the Ibibio Union, an organization which he later led. At TCD, he served as President of the University Philosophical Society, the student debating society. He later earned a postgraduate degree at Oxford University.

He returned to Nigeria to practise law in the mid-1940s, but became intrigued and moved by the nationalistic politics of the time. At the time, Nigeria was attracting returning emigrants who had left previously. He joined the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons early on, but left the party following a crisis in the former Eastern Region that saw the removal of Eyo Ita, an Ibeno man from office as the leader of the Eastern Region by Azikiwe. From 1953 to 1959, Udo Udoma was a member of the federal House of Representatives, under the platform of the United National Independence Party, then he was a leading proponent for the creation of a Calabar/Ogoja/Rivers state. However, his failure to succeed in the creation of an independent region or state in south-eastern Nigeria, and the triumph of the three major regions at a constitutional conference in 1958, led him to concede politics to the dominant parties. He spent four years as a high court judge before he was appointed Chief Justice in Uganda.