Modupe Omo-Eboh (1922 – 25 February 2002) was a Nigerian lawyer and jurist who was the country's first female judge.

Early life and education

Modupe Akingbehin was born in Lagos State in 1922. Her mother was a granddaughter of the Lagos aristocrat Oshodi Tapa and a great granddaughter of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, who was himself a descendant of King Abiodun of Oyo. The nationalist Herbert Macaulay was her maternal great-uncle. She attended Queen's College, Lagos before studying law in London.

Modupe Omo-Eboh

Career

Omo-Eboh was called to the English bar at Lincoln's Inn on 14 March 1953. She worked as a lawyer, Magistrate, Chief Magistrate, Administrator-General and Public Trustee, Director of Public Prosecutions and Acting Solicitor-General before she became a judge in Benin City on Thursday 13 November 1969, the first woman appointed to the High Courts of Nigeria. In 1976, she was appointed to the Lagos judiciary.

Modupe Omo-Eboh

Omo-Eboh died on 25 February 2002.

Modupe Omo-Eboh

There is a Justice Modupe Omo-Eboh Street in Lagos named after her.

Personal life

Omo-Eboh's husband was a Justice of the Court of Appeal from Edo State.

See also

List of first women lawyers and judges in Africa

References

1922 births

2002 deaths

People from Lagos State

Nigerian women lawyers

Nigerian women judges

20th-century women lawyers

Nigerian expatriates in the United Kingdom

Abiodun family

Queen's College, Lagos alumni

Yoruba women lawyers

20th-century Nigerian lawyers

Lagos State judges

History of women in Nigeria

20th-century Nigerian women