Professor Itse Sagay is widely associated with Nigerian legal scholarship, university education, constitutional debate and public affairs. Yet the career for which he later became known began far from the national spotlight, in the schools of colonial Nigeria and in a family that placed considerable importance on education, discipline and professional achievement.
A photograph of a young Itsejuwa Esanjumi Sagay with his mother in Warri during the 1950s provides a fitting doorway into those formative years. By that decade, Sagay had already begun the education that would eventually take him from Warri and Ughelli to the University of Ife, Cambridge University, the professorial chair, the deanships of two Nigerian law faculties and the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
His story also intersects with a broader history: the development of university legal education after independence, struggles over academic freedom during military rule, the growth of Nigerian legal scholarship and later national debates over law, governance and corruption.
Professor Itse Sagay and the Warri Years
Itsejuwa Esanjumi Sagay was born on 20 December 1940 in Ibadan. His family background, however, was closely connected with the area that is today Delta State.
His father, Andrew Esanjumi Sagay, was a teacher. He was known for emphasising hard work, integrity and responsible conduct. Sagay’s mother worked as a midwife and later as a health visitor, providing another model of professional ambition within the household.
Sagay began attending CMS School in Warri in 1946. He remained there through his primary education, which he completed in 1954. He then entered Government College, Ughelli, one of the important secondary institutions of the period, where he studied from September 1954 until December 1959.
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These years unfolded during the final phase of British colonial rule. Nigeria was experiencing rapid political change, constitutional negotiations and increasingly vigorous debates about self-government.
Sagay initially hoped to study medicine. His interests eventually shifted towards law and public affairs, a decision that would determine the direction of the rest of his professional life.
From Employment to Nigeria’s New University of Ife
After leaving Government College, Sagay did not proceed immediately to university.
He worked with the Customs and Excise Department in Lagos and later with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. During this period, he continued his studies and completed Advanced Level subjects in History, Economics and Government.
In 1962, he gained admission to study law at the University of Ife, the institution now known as Obafemi Awolowo University.
The timing was significant. The university’s Faculty of Law was itself new, and Sagay became part of its pioneering generation of law students.
He graduated in 1965 with an LL.B, earning a Second Class Upper Division. He was the only member of the university’s first graduating law class to obtain that classification.
His academic performance also brought him a national scholarship. The distinction he achieved at Ife became an early indication of the scholarly career that would follow.
Nigerian Law School and the Move into Academia
Following graduation, Sagay proceeded to the Nigerian Law School for professional training.
He performed strongly in the 1966 Bar examinations, receiving recognition for his performance in Revenue Law as well as for his overall results. He was called to the Nigerian Bar in July 1966.
Rather than move immediately into full-time private practice, Sagay chose university teaching.
In September 1966, he joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Ife as an Assistant Lecturer. The appointment placed him inside one of the institutions then helping to develop a distinct body of Nigerian legal education after independence.
The university subsequently sponsored him for postgraduate study at King’s College, Cambridge University, in Britain.
At Cambridge, Sagay specialised in international law. He completed a master’s degree in International Law in 1968 and a doctorate in International Law in 1970.
His doctoral work dealt with major international legal questions of the era, including South-West Africa, later Namibia, and the international legal issues surrounding colonialism, apartheid and self-determination.
Becoming Professor Itse Sagay
Sagay returned to the University of Ife after completing his doctoral studies and continued building an academic career in international law and related fields.
His teaching and research interests expanded across public international law, constitutional law, contract, succession, family law, customary law, human rights and international humanitarian law.
In 1976, he received a certificate from The Hague Academy of International Law, one of the long-established institutions associated with advanced study of international law.
On 1 September 1979, Sagay became a Professor of Law at the University of Ife.
He subsequently served as Acting Dean and then Dean of the Faculty of Law, with his deanship extending into the 1981 to 1982 period.
By this stage, the schoolboy who had begun his education at CMS School in Warri had become part of the senior leadership of one of Nigeria’s leading faculties of law.
His writings also contributed to legal education beyond his own classrooms. Over the course of his career, he produced books, monographs, journal articles and newspaper commentary covering areas including contract, succession, international law and constitutional questions.
Among his published works is Nigerian Law of Succession. His autobiography, All Will Be Well: The Autobiography of Itsejuwa Sagay, was published by Safari Books in 2022.
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Building the Faculty of Law at the University of Benin
Another major stage of Sagay’s academic career began in the early 1980s.
He went to the University of Benin as a visiting professor in 1981 and subsequently joined the institution full-time. He became the founding Dean of its Faculty of Law.
His tenure as Dean lasted from 1982 until 1986.
Building a law faculty involved more than classroom teaching. It required developing academic structures, recruiting lecturers and shaping a curriculum capable of training future lawyers, judges, scholars and public officials.
Sagay also participated in work connected with the establishment of legal studies at Bendel State University, later renamed Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.
The institutional contribution became an important part of his academic legacy. Students and junior academics who passed through the faculties in which he worked later occupied significant positions within Nigeria’s legal profession and public life.
Academic Freedom, Military Rule and the Courts
Sagay’s university career also brought him into confrontation with the political realities of military-era Nigeria.
During the government of General Ibrahim Babangida, Sagay and other academics associated with the Academic Staff Union of Universities became involved in disputes concerning university governance and academic freedom.
Sagay and some colleagues were compulsorily retired.
They challenged their removal through the courts. After years of litigation, the affected academics were reinstated. Sagay subsequently returned to university teaching before finally ending his full-time academic career in 2004.
The episode connected several parts of his professional identity. He was not only a teacher of law but also a lawyer confronting the practical use of legal institutions in disputes over public authority and employment rights.
His public profile increasingly extended beyond university campuses. During periods of military government, he became associated with arguments concerning constitutionalism, human rights, the rule of law and democratic government.
These experiences helped move Sagay from the primarily academic world of the lecture theatre into a wider role as a public legal commentator.
From Legal Practice to Senior Advocate and Public Service
Sagay established Itse Sagay & Co., Legal Practitioners and Consultants, in 1988 and became its managing partner.
His transition into legal practice did not end his academic writing. Instead, teaching, scholarship, litigation and public commentary increasingly became overlapping parts of his career.
In September 1998, he was elevated to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, one of the highest professional distinctions in the Nigerian legal profession.
His work also brought him into contact with national and international institutions. He undertook consultancy and advisory assignments involving Nigerian government bodies, the United Nations and African institutions.
Decades after his first appointment as a university lecturer, Sagay entered another prominent phase of public service.
In August 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, commonly known as PACAC. The committee was created to advise the Federal Government on anti-corruption policy, prosecution and reforms affecting the criminal justice system.
The appointment placed Sagay at the centre of national debates about corruption, prosecution, constitutional authority and institutional reform during the Buhari administration.
His positions in those debates sometimes generated disagreement, as often occurs when legal scholars become active participants in contested matters of public policy. His importance to the history of Nigerian law, however, extends beyond any single administration or political controversy.
It rests on a career that crossed several distinct worlds: colonial-era education, the early development of Nigerian university law faculties, international legal scholarship, university administration, private practice, human-rights advocacy and national public service.
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Conclusion
The life of Professor Itse Sagay traces an unusually broad path through modern Nigerian legal history.
From CMS School in Warri and Government College, Ughelli, he entered one of the earliest law classes at the University of Ife. From Ife, he moved to postgraduate study at Cambridge, returned to become a professor, led law faculties at Ife and Benin, wrote extensively on Nigerian and international law, confronted the consequences of military-era university politics and later developed a substantial legal practice.
His elevation to Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 1998 and appointment to chair PACAC in 2015 added further chapters to a career already spanning decades.
Yet the scale of that later career makes the image from his younger years particularly striking. Before the professorships, court cases, books, deanships and national appointments, there was a schoolboy growing up in an era when Nigeria itself was undergoing profound change.
That journey from the classrooms of Warri and Ughelli to the highest levels of legal scholarship and public debate places Sagay within the larger story of Nigerian professionals whose careers developed alongside the country’s transition from colonial rule to independence and the complex political decades that followed.
Author’s Note
Professor Itse Sagay’s story demonstrates how the history of a nation can also be traced through the institutions and individuals who helped shape its professional life. His journey links colonial-era schooling, the establishment of university legal education, international scholarship, the pressures placed on universities during military rule and the continuing role of lawyers in Nigerian public affairs. Seen across these different periods, his career offers a window into the development of Nigeria’s legal and academic institutions as much as it tells the story of one scholar.
References
Sagay, Itsejuwa. All Will Be Well: The Autobiography of Itsejuwa Sagay. Safari Books Limited, Ibadan, 2022.
Hallmarks of Labour Foundation. “Professor Itse Sagay, SAN, HLR.”
Obafemi Awolowo University, Department of Jurisprudence and Private Law. “About the Department.”
Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption. “Professor Itse Sagay, SAN.”
United Nations Digital Library. A/AC.115/L.616.
The Guardian Nigeria. “Buhari is Saving Judiciary with Prosecution of Suspended CJN, Prof. Itse Sagay,” 26 February 2019.
Hallmarks of Labour Foundation. Hallmarks of Labour, Volume 8.
