HE BECAME A LAWYER AT THE AGE OF 80 YEARS

Pa  Pius Enabeli from Aboh in Delta state was among the newly called to bar law school graduates of July 2016. Anyone could have thought life was over for him at the age of 70 but at over 70 years of age, he took a decision to study law in a Nigerian University despising all odds.

He attended classes with the age mates of his grandchildren and became the third lawyer in his home town and the first in his family. He attributed it all to God and when asked why he decided to take such unusual journey he said   "One of the things that made me study Law is that ordinarily, people have been telling me that from the way I discuss, from the way I reason, that why don’t I read Law? But there’s an anecdote to illustrate why I proceeded to read Law at my age.
Sometime in 1956, when I was in DMGS Onitsha, we were supposed to be doing Igbo Language and Latin in those days and I was good at both. But there was a classmate of mine who is Isoko, who was regularly excused during both classes. So one day, maybe out of childishness, I felt that being a Delta man, too, I should be relaxing too. I pulled my seat back a little to stay with him, when the tutor came in. He was annoyed seeing me staying in that position.
Now, the tutor had already got his intermediate LLB from London University because no university in Nigeria had a Law faculty, and he was preparing seriously for his LLB finals. So he asked me, ‘Mr. Enebeli, why aren’t you in my class?’ So, I got up and said, ‘Sir, please define the extent of your class’. He was embarrassed, because the logic behind it is a legal thing, and he didn’t know what to do. Then he said ‘Mr. Enebeli, you are entering into the field I know better’. After that he I should see him after school.
After school, I went to him and he offered me bananas which I ate like it was a condemned prisoner’s meal. He later came and sat with me, and asked whether my parents could send me to the university to study Law. But I said my parents don’t have any money, and it pained him so much. He went into his room and presented me a novel entitled ‘John Citizen and the Law’. The book gave me tremendous inspiration.
Fast-forward many decades later, after enjoying myself as a civil servant, it occurred to me that somebody once told me that I would do well studying Law. That’s why I decided to do it".

Death is the only end to the achievement of man. When you are alive, all you need is to be determined and with God on your side, the sky won't even be your limit.

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Photo credit :thenigerianlawyer. Com
Story credit:thenigerianlawyer.com