By: Tunde Olofintila
Medical practitioners the world over are wont to always tell us that a good prognosis precedes a good diagnosis. Borrowing a leave from the physicians, Social Commentators and Public Affairs Analysts would want to make us believe that a drastic disease calls for an equal drastic measure of cure. Both are probably incontestably right.
Last week, friends and associates of the frontline legal icon, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, called the cream-de-la-cream of the society which included the royalty, the academia, politics and the judiciary as well as members of the business community to witness the twin activities of the commissioning of Babalola’s second four-storey office complex in Ibadan and a Public Lecture delivered by Hon. Justice Emmanuel Ayoola, JSC (rtd) to celebrate his (Babalola’s) golden jubilee of being called to the Nigerian Bar, having been called to Bar on July 9, 1963.
Although a lot has been said and written about the lecture and the witticism of former President Olusegun Obasanjo who enjoyed the double honour of commissioning the second office complex at Ekotedo area of Ibadan and chairing the public lecture at the ultra modern Bar Centre at Iyaganku area of the capital city of the pacesetting state, but one of the high points of the celebration was Babalola’s diagnosis that Nigeria is sick and therefore in dire need of an urgent attention and cure to ensure that it does not die.
In his remarks at the anniversary lecture held at the Bar Centre which he built and donated to Ibadan Bar Association, Babalola, an incurable optimist about Nigeria getting better, recalled how different segments of the society, ranging from Theatre practitioners, Jurists to legal practitioners, are unanimous in their resolve that Nigeria is indeed sick.
In a play staged on Monday, July 8, 2013 by the likes of Lere Paimo, aka Eda Onile-Ola, Kareem Adepoju, aka Baba Wande, Jimoh Aliu, Elesho, Ogunjimi Ajaga-jigi, Iyaniwe and Nike Pella among many others to underscore the occasion, the artists came to the unwavering conclusion that the legal entity known as the Federal Republic of Nigeria is sick.
In a rare display of the common knowledge of Nigeria’s pathetic ailment, the artists’ position was corroborated the following day by the Guest Speaker, Hon. Justice Yinka Ayoola, JSC (rtd) who spoke on a topic titled “The Future of Law in Nigeria” when he said “comparing the past with the present and the future has enough that can easily fill one with despondency. The gains of the past seem to have been swallowed up in the decline of the present. It is against this background that the truth must be told that unless we take immediate steps to arrest the prospect of law’s increasing impotence and apparent irrelevance, the future of law is bound to be dismal”.
If artistes, who as social engineers entertain and educate the populace and a Jurist in the mould of the highly discipline, thoroughly distinguished and erudite Justice Ayoola, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court and former Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices (and Other Offences) Commission (ICPC) could come to that conclusion at different times and settings within 24 hours, then Nigeria is indeed and undoubtedly sick.
Babalola, who was more forceful and forthcoming in his diagnosis, agreed with both the artists and Justice Ayoola that what ails the project Nigeria mainly is dishonesty. He went ahead to itemize those ailments which have to be treated seriously to avoid the death of the entity called Nigeria. They are, according to him, mismanagement of funds, whether of employers or of government, corruption and poor attitude to work as well as eye service, poor planning and execution at all levels.
Others are unwarranted strike actions in different segments and sectors of the economy, cultism and use of drugs and other forms of rascality in tertiary institutions as well as the abrogation by the military government of the 1960 constitution which was agreed on by the founding fathers of Nigeria in Lancaster House, London after long deliberation that lasted for 10 years and the illegal imposition of the 1999 military constitution which was christened Federal constitution when in fact it is a unitary constitution.
To get out this self-imposed quagmire and political impasse, he recommended an urgent need to administer the correct dose of treatment to cure these ailments by way of “a new constitution”, a people’s constitution, and not a mere palliative treatment termed amendment to a diseased and defective federal constitution ab initio.
Now fishing in familiar waters, Babalola, who became a member of the Inner Bar in 1987, 24 years after being called to the Bar, recalled how many lawyers have been asking for the abrogation of the SAN title in last few years. Their grievance is that they apply year-after-year with as many as 70 qualifying for the award every year. But at the end of the day, those who admit legal practitioners into SAN-ship, (the Legal Privileges Committee of the Bar), would lean so heavily on the law that says they cannot appoint more than 15 in any particular year, thereby leaving (having) a backlog of those who are qualified, but not awarded, almost on a yearly basis.
The question then arises: if a person is qualified at a particular point in time, at what point does he become unqualified again? Perhaps one may ask those who are charged with the duty of appointing 15 out of 60 or 70 qualified practitioners what criteria they use to jettison those who are qualified. The problem here is that without knowing it, this practice of appointing 15 out of the several that are qualified has led to corruption, sectionalism and favouritism and corner cutting by some junior lawyers, thereby lowering the standard of practice in the country.
Nigeria should copy England where the idea of the silk (SAN title), the equivalent of QC in England was borrowed from hook, line and sinker. From time immemorial in England, no matter the number that qualify in a particular year, be it 60 or 70, all of them would be appointed, leaving no room for any backlog. Nigeria must do the needful in this regard if it must not be left behind.
On the judiciary, he said it will be pretentious for anyone to say or think that all is well with the judiciary as it is today, both in the quality of appointees and the judgments they deliver, adding that lawyers who qualified in England know how judges are appointed and what the community expects of a judge.
His words: “Up to the late 1970s, lawyers were invited to the Bench based on quality and competence of such lawyers, but nowadays, all that is required is that you must have 10-years post call and nothing more. We are not likely to get the best through that way of appointing our judges. Today, many extraneous qualifications have crept into the appointment of judges so much so that people working in public limited liability companies have been appointed judges to satisfy geographical spread. Mind you, these are people who have not been to court before, who have never practiced and yet they are being appointed judges only to satisfy some interest alien to the administration of justice.”
He added: “With this type of people on the Bench, there have been numerous cases where judges have adjourned ex-parte motions because the other party has not been served. A ridiculous situation indeed because ex-parte motions do not involve lawyers on the other side! Lawyers have been faced with the ridiculous situations where ex-parte motions were adjourned because there is no evidence of service in the file”.
In his now well known proclivity for always wanting the best for the judiciary, nay Nigeria, Babalola therefore suggested that if people who qualify to be made Senior Advocates of Nigeria are not restricted in number, there would be a ready pool of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, who have made good money in their practice years, and ready to accept elevation to the Bench, thereby increasing/improving quality of judges and reducing corruption.
(Ends)
Olofintila is of the Public Affairs Unit of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti.