Law requires more of intelligence than memory – Sylvester Imhanobe

How many  law books have you published so far?I have been into writing for  a while and I have published 10 law books.What is the highest amount of money that you have spent at a time in purchasing books for yourself?I bought the All England Law Report  for N1,850,000 (N1.85 million) for over 100 volumes […]

How many  law books have you published so far?
I have been into writing for  a while and I have published 10 law books.
What is the highest amount of money that you have spent at a time in purchasing books for yourself?
I bought the All England Law Report  for N1,850,000 (N1.85 million) for over 100 volumes from 1936 to 2014 it was N1, 850,000 at a go. I also bought the Halsbury Laws of England N1,500,000 (N1.5 million). Interestingly I bought it from Odade Publishers. I also bought them at a go.
Many people have said that in view of the forthcoming elections, when politicians come around to seek your vote and offer you money, that you should collect the money and vote according to your conscience, do you support this?
Personally I do not subscribe to collecting money and voting according to your conscience because I really do not think that it would be possible. If you do not want something don’t get it close to yourself. Money has a way of making people compromise their integrity. No hunger kills at least not in Nigeria so you should maintain your integrity and keep on to the policy you believe in and vote for the right person. I will not take money from somebody I do not believe in what he is telling me. People should be circumspect in terms of collecting money from politicians.
But if you would vote for the candidate, would you take money from such person?
In all honesty I will vote for him and if he gives me money I will take it.
Was the JUSUN strike called for, because if every litigant that won a court case should go on strike to enforce the judgment perhaps JUSUN would not have a day in court?
It is a labour matter. They talked about enforcement of court judgment which itself was the provision of the constitution that money to the judiciary should be on the first line charge. I don’t know how we got it wrong such that we did not implement that constitutional provision. They tend to say that it is the state governors that cause the problem but certainly there are pushes here and there. The way they play game in Nigeria nobody ever takes the blame. What the end users really want is the solution. The consistent thing in Nigeria is that strikes are used to target a period so that they would get result, but there is pain on the people. You don’t go and strike in September when the courts are on session, it makes no sense and that is what JUSUN has been doing before; so they targeted this period  to touch everybody .
The Law Officers Association of Nigeria (LOAN) is also planning its own strike. I met a law officer who said that why they will not go on strike now is that it won’t make a difference  from JUSUN strike and the impact would not be felt so they want JUSUN strike to end and they would start their own strike. On what? On harmonisation of salaries? Their salaries are definitely poor in public service and something must be done. So whether it is called for or not called for that is the way most of them understand to get their demands through, otherwise in civilised setting you don’t have to go on strike to get what you are entitled to.
It is where we place the judiciary in the system; we don’t place the judiciary in its rightful place otherwise we should not be where we are now.
Recently at the last Bar part 2 examinations, there was mass failure, what could have been responsible for that?
My position is that it is a multi-faceted challenge. Firstly it is a challenge coming from the regulatory authorities and there is also the challenge of the students.
The modern day students who study law, and we know how we used to study this same law, the invention of the digital gadgets and the internet has shortened the concentration of the average student.
So now instead  of reading you find that people want to use internet for something they do not understand. I gave assignment to some students that came on attachment to my chambers and they went on the internet to research and when I saw their research it was like sewing a coat of many colors because they just copied and pasted. I collected the papers and asked that they should tell me what they have written but they could not say a word on the three-page document that each of them has written. So the students have to realise that Law requires understanding, maturity  and more  of intelligence than memory. When they were in the university and used to memorise, that was substantive law. The law school as it is, is a vocational institution where you  are trained how it is done. So they must appreciate that fact.
Coming to the regulatory aspect which is very important, this issue has been raised at the National Assembly. You find out that it is only in this profession that the regulator and the operator are fused as one.
The Council for Legal Education (CLE) ought to be the regulator of the Nigerian Law School (NLS) but as it is now you find an anomaly where the opposite is the case. The secretary to the council ordinarily should not aspire to be the Director General of the NLS because it can be likened to a situation whereby the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, NUC, aspires to be the vice chancellor of a university. Instead of having the council really separate and regulate the NLS you find that they are so fused that the NLS has taken precedence over the operator. We are even canvassing that there is need to have private institutions to train students to write the Bar final examinations.
If you can have private universities that train medical doctors and lawyers as at today we have over 22 private universities that have law faculties, the study of the vocational aspects itself can also be handled by private organisations. As it is now the number of students the NLS is handling is definitely too large. This proposal of ours would even help to stop the idea of backlog.
I weep when I see students who after graduation are not able to get admission into the law school because we know that this is a profession that gives respect to seniority such that we have a situation that somebody that you were in the same class with in the university finished the same year and the person becomes three or four years your senior, not out of your own fault but because you could not get admission and that seniority will be there forever. So there is need to unbundle the NLS itself so that the council comes in as a regulatory body to regulate training at the vocational level.
Elsewhere, even in England, that is what is operational. So it is really this same hold tight system of over-centralisation that is part of the challenges and nobody would regulate himself and give himself negative assessment. When you regulate yourself the answer must be passed. So we find a situation whereby NCC has its own operator like MTN, you have WAEC having its own secondary school, NUC having its own university. So CLE should be totally separate and allow for both government and private law schools.
In your opinion what is the greatest threat to our democracy?
It is impunity of the political parties. The issue of internal democracy is something that we have not done very well in. To contest elections in Nigeria from any of the parties you need a godfather. It is the over flow of the absence of that internal democracy in parties that we see coming out. Let us take governorship for example; to contest governorship you must have been preparing for about four years and serving the godfather day and night. These godfathers have at the end of the day the power of telling you yes or no. That impunity of ‘I decide who will contest election’ is a big challenge in all the political parties and it is a threat to democracy.
Are you satisfied with the disciplinary mechanism within the NBA?
We must give credit to the administration of Okey Wali SAN as erstwhile NBA president except for the fact that the law in that area is not certain. Pertaining to appeals, there is a body – the body of Benchers Appeal Committee – that is supposed to hear appeals from the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee. That challenge is a legislative issue. That body presently does not exist. When you look at the case of Aladejobi that got to the Supreme Court and after that case another case they tell you that there is a body that is supposed to be established. I think it is time that that body should be established so as to smoothen out the disciplinary procedures.