I was just reviewing an April 17, 2022 article entitled “Senior Advocates Of Whatever” attributed to distinguished scholar professor and inimitable human rights activist Chidi Odinkalu. I fully agree with the esteemed scholar Prof that the behavior of some of Nigeria’s senior lawyers leaves much to be desired and that this is worrying because it sets a bad example for younger lawyers.
I disagree, however, with the learned professor’s conclusion that _“young lawyers are striving right now with an overwhelming sense of desperation to join this circle, safe in the knowledge that it will sanctify them as witches and wizards from professional impunity. To fully reflect its current evolution, it may be time for the body to upgrade its name to the Body of Senior Advocates of Whatever (BOSAW).”
First, I seriously doubt that the rationale for young lawyers’ eagerness to become members of BOSAN includes that membership of the respected body “will sanctify them as witches and wizards from professional impunity.”
With all due respect, I don’t think so. And I will give just one example to support my point. If being a SAN offers immunity from professional discipline, then why was Mr. Aondoakaa suspended from the LPPC and later found unfit to hold public office in Nigeria by a Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court’s pronouncement is well reflected in the article by the distinguished Prof. Odinkalu: _’On December 10, 2021, the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled that “Mr. Aondoakaa “had by his conduct undermined and undermined the administration of justice and the independence, authority and integrity of the judiciary” and “should not be entrusted with any other public office.”‘_ In my opinion, suspension from holding public office is a severe penalty and constitutes sufficient sanction for Mr. Aondoakaa’s reprehensible conduct in office as HAGF. Note that the mere fact that he is a SAN has not deterred the Apex Court or the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee (LPPC) from filing against him to proceed. This is sufficient evidence that SANs are not immune to professional discipline for violating legal ethics.
Second, there is no doubt that some SANs misbehave, but we should know that so many non-SANs misbehave as well. And just as there are some SANs who have yet to be punished for their professional misconduct, there are very many non-SANs who have trampled on legal ethics with impunity. It must be admitted that there is a general problem with discipline in the legal profession in Nigeria; it is not about SANs nor about BOSAN. In a statement made available to journalists on April 2, 2021, the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) recommended the following to the general public:
“The attention of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has been drawn to the video making the rounds in which Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) Chairman Danladi Yakubu Umar, along with his security detail, was seen allegedly assaulting a citizen has at Banex Plaza in Wuse Abuja. We know that this citizen was a 22-year-old employee of Jul Reliable Guards Services Limited who was stationed as a security guard in the plaza and has now reportedly been hospitalized.
In addition, as a legal professional, under the applicable regulations governing the behavior of lawyers in Nigeria, Danladi Yakubu Umar is expected to maintain a high standard of professional conduct and not engage in any conduct that is improper as a legal professional. Currently available prima facie evidence raises questions as to whether these standards have been met. In light of the foregoing, the NBA, through its committee with jurisdiction, will investigate the circumstances leading up to the altercation and, depending on the outcome, ensure that appropriate action is taken to address this incident.”
The message that circulated the same day read, “The NBA is investigating the CCT Chairman’s alleged assault on a security officer.”* Danladi Umar is not a SAN. However, to date, nothing has been heard from the NBA or any action taken by NBA leadership on the matter. “Has the matter been swept under the rug?” is the question on many lips, to this day.
Anyhow, the point I am trying to make here is that malpractice in the legal profession in Nigeria is not exclusive to the members of BOSAN. I therefore respectfully assert that one should not rely on the improper conduct of some SANs to brand the entire membership of BOSAN as evil or bad behavior, as this would amount to discrediting all SANs in Nigeria due to the misconduct of just a handful of their peers .
Also, following the example I gave above, if we should start looking down on SAN’s rank/title or all SANs simply because of the misconduct of some titleholders, then perhaps the same (albeit flawed) reasoning, the entire Belonging to the legal profession as a whole, should be condemned or discredited as there are many non-SANs whose behavior also leaves much to be desired and who have yet to be held accountable before they are relevant to professional disciplinary bodies. Similarly, we should also begin to see Nigeria as a country of criminals or terrorists simply because terrorism and crime have permeated the environmental landscape.
what’s more Let us even take concrete examples in the case of the professorship in Nigeria: (1) The Guardian of March 26, 2021, under the title “Professor sentenced by court to three years for electoral fraud”, reports that “an Akwa Ibom State High Court 2 sitting in Ikot Ekpene has found a professor of soil physics at the University of Uyo, Peter Ogban, guilty of an electoral offense and consequently sentenced him to three years in prison”.
The court had reportedly found him guilty of tilting the election result in favor of the APC. (2) Also, in June 2018, an accounting professor at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Richard Akindele, was fired for soliciting sex from a certain Monica Osagie in order to get better grades on exams. Recall that Professor Akindele was later convicted on December 17, 2018 after pleading guilty to four counts. (3) On April 16, 2022, the Gazettengr reports that “another OAU professor has been arrested for attempted rape, battery of a student.”*_ (4) Also, on December 17, 2019, The Guardian reported that “The University of Abuja … has fired a professor and former Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Adeniji Adedayo Abiodun, for alleged sexual harassment.” (5) On the same day, the newspaper reported, the same university approved the dismissal of Professor Agaptus Buzo-Chibuzor Orji from the Department of Science and Environmental Education for falsifying academic records and aiding and abetting examination errors at the university. (6). On March 4, 2022, the news said: “Professor Richard Solomon Musa Tarfa, co-founder of orphanages for vulnerable children in Kano and Kaduna states, has been convicted by a Supreme Court in Kano state, Nigeria, of forging a certificate of registration issued by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and social development of Kano State”.
(7) On August 20, 2021, the Daily Post reported that “The High Court in Birnin Kudu, Jigawa State, on Thursday sentenced Prof. Steve Uchella and Boniface Afifa Oru to five years in prison for forgery.” On December 1, 2020, an Akwa Ibom State High Court in Uyo remanded Nigerian professor, Ignatius Uduk, into custody for his alleged involvement in voter fraud during the 2019 general election. Professor Uduk was indicted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday for allegedly false election results in 2019.”
The list is endless. Should we then rely on these few instances of professor misconduct to make a hasty generalization and conclusion about professors that the professorship in Nigeria is mostly made up of criminals, scammers and sex maniacs? Nooooo.
Such a conclusion would be erroneous and above all tantamount to committing an error of hasty generalization. Hasty generalization is a fallacy in which a conclusion is not logically justified by sufficient or unbiased evidence. It is also called an insufficient sample, a reverse accident, an erroneous generalization, a biased generalization, hasty conclusions, secundum quid, a neglect of qualifications, or an over-generalization.
Hasty generalization fallacy is basically used to denote a claim based on evidence that is simply too insufficient, or based on unrepresentative samples; draw a conclusion based on a small sample size, rather than looking at statistics that are much more representative of the typical or average situation.
The gravamen of my submission is this: There are very many disciplinary bodies in the legal profession in Nigeria; Anyone who believes that an attorney, SAN or non-SAN, has violated legal ethics owes the profession a duty to report such erring member or members to the appropriate disciplinary authority or bodies and to properly investigate such report to subject the lawyer or lawyers concerned to relevant professional discipline and, if necessary, to sanctions. Rule 55 of the Code of Conduct of the Bar, 2007 is clear enough: _”(1) If a barrister breaches any of the rules of these rules or fails to perform any of the duties imposed by the rules, he is guilty of professional misconduct and is punishable as such provided for in the Legal Practitioners Act 1975. (2) It is the duty of every Attorney to report any breach of any of these Rules of which he becomes aware to the competent authorities for the necessary disciplinary action.
In the meantime, we shouldn’t call an entire community evil because only a few of its residents are misbehaving. BOSAN remains BOSAN, respected and respected in all its ramifications, regardless of the blatant misconduct of some of its members. The respected BOSAN doesn’t translate to “Body of Senior Advocates of Whatever (BOSAW)” just because of the misconduct of a handful of its members. Non-misconducted members of BOSAN (and they are in the majority) should not be made to pay for or share in the taint or shame caused by the sins of some of their peers.
Let the misbehaving SANs be fished out and punished in accordance with the law and legal ethics, but let the BOSAN as a body be a respected body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria and not a “body of Senior Advocates of whatever”.
By: Sylvester Udemezue
Udemezue wrote from Nigerian Law School.
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