Nigeria, April 1 -- "Some judges have achieved a considerable degree of expertise..in displaying an immunity from contemporary knowledge and concerns." - David Pannick, KC, Judges, p. 32 (1987)

Emmanuel Araka was 60 years old when Allison Madueke, then over 20 years his junior, a navy captain and military governor of Anambra State, terminated his judicial career in March 1985. At the time, Araka had been the chief judge of Anambra State for six years and a judge for double that. At the time also, the retirement age of judges in Nigeria was 65.

Araka's crime was that he took the job of the judge too seriously and believed that he should be manifestly independent of political and executive influence.

Araka was born in 1925 to a father fr...