Kogi chief judge dies at COVID-19 isolation centre

Nasir Ajanah, chief judge of Kogi state, is dead.

TheCable understands that Ajanah died at the COVID-19 isolation centre in Gwagwalada, Abuja.

A member of the family confirmed the death to TheCable on Sunday morning.

His death came less than two weeks after an aide to Yahaya Bello, the state governor, also died in an Abuja hospital.

Ajanah has died a week after the passing of Ibrahim Shaibu Atadoga, the president of the Kogi customary court of appeal in Kogi state.

Kingsley Fanwo, the state commissioner for information, did not immediately respond to enquiries for comments, but Mohammed Onogwu, chief press secretary to the governor, directed TheCable to the state judiciary or Ajanah’s family.

“They are the first people that will break the news of the death,” he told TheCable.

But in a statement issued afterwards, Fanwo announced the death of the judge without mentioning that he died of COVID-19.

”The Kogi State Government wishes to announce the demise of Hon. Justice Nasir Ajana. Until his death, Nasir Ajana was the Chief Judge of Kogi State. The passing of the legal luminary is a massive blow to the Government and people of Kogi State for his brilliant justice administration throughout his career as a Judge and his tenure as the Chief Judge of Kogi State,” he said.

”He will be sorely missed for his tenacity of purpose and outstanding commitment to the sanctity of the temple of justice. He was a collosus in the noble profession of law. The State Government will work with the family of the late Chief Justice to give him a befitting burial. His shoes will be impossible to fill.”

Although the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has so far announced three cases of COVID-19 in Kogi, the state government has insisted the state is free of the disease.

It accused the NCDC of falsifying COVID-19 cases in Kogi.

Ajanah was born in 1956 to the family of MJ Fari Ajanah in Okene local government area.

He studied law at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and was called to the Nigerian bar as a barrister and solicitor of the supreme court.

Ajanah later set up his private firm, Nasiru Ajanah & Co in Okene, where he practised law between 1985 and 1989.

He served in various capacities such as chairman, Kabba disturbance tribunal, Kogi, (1994); chairman, election petitions tribunal in Adamawa state (1998); member of governing council of Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (1999 and 2006) and chairman, panel on Murtala Mohammed international airport fire incident (2000).

Ajanah, whose remains will be buried in Abuja on Sunday, served as chairman, election petitions tribunal in Akwa Ibom state (2007) and chairman, election tribunal petitions in Rivers state (2008).