He was born at Ikorodu, a local government area of Lagos State in southwestern Nigeria.
In 1955, he rose to the position of a Crown Counsel to the Western Region of Nigeria where he served at Ibadan and later transferred to Benin city.
He was a leading counsel to the committee that probed the activities of the Owegbe cult and was later appointed a judge in the High Court of Mid-Western Nigeria.
In 1966, he became the Attorney General of the Mid-Western State, a position he held until he was appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court of Nigeria as Justice.
[3] In 1985 he became a member of the Nigerian Body of Benchers, the same year he was appointed as the Chief Justice of Nigeria to succeed George Sodeinde Sowemimo.