Nigeria, July 7 -- "The mind grows old, no less than the body." Aristotle, The Politics, Book II, Ch. 9, 146 (Penguin Classics, 1981)

A little over two decades ago, away from its perception as a shrine for the resolution of the most rarefied disputes in the country, the Supreme Court of Nigeria played host to a Nigerian drama. With less than two years to go before retirement, a senior justice of that court approached then Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mohammed Lawal Uwais, with a discovery. A wise, old uncle of his from the village in one of the states of southern Nigeria had just informed him, the Justice disclosed, that there had been an error in the computation of his age as he had, indeed, been born two years later than the age dis...