Should The Statement, ‘… We Are Final Not Because We Are Infallible, Rather We Are Infallible Because We Are Final…’ Truly Be Ascribed To Justice Chukwudifu Oputa?

By Justice Segun Ojienoh

In J. K. Rowling’s popular book, Harry Potter, there is a character named Voldemort. Voldemort is such a terrifying character that his name is not to be so much as mentioned because of how indeed terrifying he is.

This Writer speaks with the same level of trepidation when He speaks of the late legal Juggernaut, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa. He is great indeed and His contributions to legal jurisprudence in this country can blind the sun with its brightness. Yet this writer feels so troubled to argue that the most popular sentence widely attributed to him may not originally be his.

This “We are final…” sentence is both a delight and a staple of lawyers in Nigeria. A lot of legal scholars, small and great, have had cause to use this sentence at various junctures in their legal scholarship or career.

It must be emphasised, like the Baptist in the book of John 1:27, that many of the literary juggernauts that have had cause to use this sentence are persons “the straps of whose sandals this writer is indeed not  worthy to untie.” Yet this is a task that must be done in order to set the records straight as it will be wrong to continue persisting in error – if there is any.

Because of the stature and verecundiam value of Justice Chukwudifu Oputa to the Nigerian legal firmament, this writer will strictly preoccupy Himself with the question of whether it is right to continually attribute this sentence to the late eminent jurist.

In ADEGOKE MOTORS V. ADESANYA, (1989) 3 NWLR (PT 109), 250, at 261, Justice Chukwudifu stated that:

“… We are final not because we are infallible, rather we are infallible because we are final…”

This sentence in the judgement was reported in the Law Reports to have been made by Justice Oputa in 1989 while in 1953 – a substantial 36 years earlier – in Brown v Allen, 344 U.S. 443 (1953) at 540, Justice Robert Jackson stated that:

“[w]e are not final because we are infallible, we are infallible because we are final.”

It must first be conceded that the statements are not exactly, perfectly and identically similar as Xerox copies but the level of similarity in the phraseologies may raise the statements high and beyond the threshold of coincidence.

Could it have been the same muse that communicated the strikingly similar statements to them 36 years apart? Or is it not a more plausible argument that Justice Chukwudifu Oputa came across the statement, being a voraciously well-read jurist, by either reading the judgement of Justice Robert Jackson or a source that itself read that judgement? The running conjectures stand a chance of being infinite.

Unless and until the alternative is established, if the statement must be used, the better, safer and more correct approach to pursue is to cite Justice Robert Jackson, as the source and use his exact version. This is a more compelling reason because the world is a global village and judicial statements are cited, quoted and referred to across borders either for academic purposes or as persuasive authority in extra territorial courts.

Justice Segun Ojienoh works for Eko Solicitors and Advocates and can be reached via email at: ojienohjustice@gmail.com

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