Chief James Ajibola Idowu Ige SAN was born on September 13, 1930 in Esa Oke, Osun State. He died on December 23, 2001. He is fondly called Bola Ige. He was a Nigerian lawyer and politician.

He served as Federal Minister of Justice of Nigeria from January 2000 until his assassination in December 2001. He previously served as governor of Oyo State from 1979 to 1983 during the Nigerian Second Republic.

He studied at Ibadan Grammar School between 1943 and 1948 and then at the University of Ibadan. He attended the University College London, where he graduated with a law degree in 1959. He was called to the bar in London's Inner Temple in 1961.

Ige established Bola Ige & Co in 1961, and later became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

Towards the end of the 1970s he joined the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), the successor to the Action Group. When General Olusegun Obasanjo initiated the Second Republic, he was elected as governor of Oyo State from October 1979 to October 1983.

In the 1983 elections, he ran for re-election as the UPN candidate and was defeated by Dr. Victor Omololu Olunloyo. Ige unsuccessfully challenged the election in court. However, Olunloyo lost the seat three months later to a coup staged by Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon.

Ige was detained after the coup, accused of enriching himself with party funds. He was released in 1985, after the next coup, by Ibrahim Babangida, and returned to his legal practice and to writing.

In 1990, he published People, Politics And Politicians of Nigeria: 1940–1979, a book that he had begun while imprisoned. He was one of the founders of the influential Yoruba pressure group, Afenifere.

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