‘Lawyers should set up in rural areas’

How do you feel being honoured as one of the three surviving pioneer graduates of the Nigerian Law School? I feel it is the mercy of God that out of the eight of us who started the programme of the Nigerian Law School in January 1963, I am one of the three known survivors and […]

How do you feel being honoured as one of the three surviving pioneer graduates of the Nigerian Law School?
I feel it is the mercy of God that out of the eight of us who started the programme of the Nigerian Law School in January 1963, I am one of the three known survivors and out of the three, who was able to attend the 50th anniversary ceremony in good health and sound mind. I feel sad for my colleagues who may have gone and for those who could not come. It was a good class and I thank God for His mercies.
Going into that particular class who were mainly trained in London, how was the experience?
It was a little intimidating at first because we were already called into the English Bar before the Legal Education Act of 1962 came into effect, we would have just gone to the Supreme Court and registered to start practice the next day. But the Act by the Nigerian Government compelled all of us to go to the Law School. Though we resisted it, but we had no choice but to succumb to it. The staff there made it easy for us to adapt quickly. And three months passed so quickly and we learnt a lot which we didn’t learn in England because Nigerian laws and Procedures are quite different. On the 21st of March 1963, eight of us qualified and were enrolled at the Supreme Court. It was a good experience.
  Do you have any nostalgia about Igbosere, Lagos, where it all began?
Yes, when eight people live together in one building with classrooms, accommodation, our world was around that Igbosere. Not just there, the courts were around the building, some lawyers’ chambers were around there. So we were living in a kind of legal environment. And it made our stay almost an extension of Chancery Lane in England – that is where the lawyers and solicitors or the Inns of Court stay. So we transited to the Nigerian equivalent of the English legal environment.
How was legal practice in your early days?
You know we transited in 1960 from colonial rule to self govt. But I must say that right up to the Civil War, Nigeria was a country of law and order. There were political crisis here and there which led to the first military coup, but in the legal profession it was a mark of honour to practice law and there were many role models.
We saw Justice J.I.T. Taylor, Ben Nwabueze was a lecture at the University of Lagos at the time. But we practiced contemporaneously with the likes of Chief Rotimi Williams, Kehinde Sofola, G.O.K. Ajayi, G.C.M. Onyiuke, Chuba Ikpeazu, Chike Offordile, among others. They were the eminent lawyers of that time. And in those times eminent lawyers were based in three centres: Ibadan, Onitsha and Aba because these were commercial centres which sustained practice.
Law was an honourable professional then. When I am going to court people used to stand around to watch me enter my car. The numbers were limited, and even in the East, mothers of lawyers were respected as special class and going to the family of a lawyer is news. And then a lawyer has to behave and dress properly. In our time, we were not allowed to wear native or informal clothes in public except to go to bed. You must be seen to be a lawyer –  some old lawyers till now appear the same way. That dress code was religiously adhered to. It was rigid but that was the time which required a dress code for lawyers. Things are changing now but in the East, old judges still dress the same way in social functions.
What is the secret of your agility after all these years?
I come from a background which helped me. My father was a teacher, then went to be a secretary typist with UAC, rose to be a manager. At 55, he went into community life. He taught us the importance of honest work and anything you earn must be from a legitimate source. He also taught us to be each others’ keeper. So I have a social conscience. In politics, I was in PDP today, NPP before. I am a social democrat by inclination. Even in my social life I like to care for the underprivileged in the society. You need to have a considerate society.
 What do you make of the quality of lawyers nowadays?
They are doing well despite the constraints of legal education such as high cost of living, travel, wigs and gowns and books. In England, many of them won’t practice because training for Law, like Medicine, is very expensive.  Only those whose parents are rich or those with scholarship scheme can make it. The rest manage to scale through and when they are through, to start practicing becomes difficult because of lack of capital. They are trying in spite of the constraints. Again, I think the numbers are too large: 5,062 and the profession as it is constituted can’t absorb them. There are many lawyers who were called for two years who have no job. And nothing is as bad as a professional who is unemployed. You need capital and tutelage to start up practice. It is not just lawyers, we are producing graduates in Nigeria who have no jobs and some of them who are frustrated join crimes. It’s not a justification but they have to live.
But for a country as large as Nigeria, is the 85,000 lawyers produced so far by the law school not little?
It is few. If the country is well ordered, lawyers should be everywhere just like doctors. But they all want to make the mega bucks that is why they are so many in Abuja, but how many of them can make it? If you are in any of these trading centres, they can still make it by giving private advice to traders, and landlord and tenants disputes etc. Outside the main town of Nnewi, there are no law firms in the boundary communities. There are many places without a lawyer. Lawyers have to spread out a little just like the traders who open shops in the rural areas and they are making it.
What are your thoughts on the suggestions by Prof Oba Nsugbe for the expansion of the law curriculum in the light of globalisation?
Globalisation is for the few top strata of lawyers, it’s not for beginners. When we started practice, we were charge and bail lawyers, where somebody is arrested and brought to court without a lawyer. He might brief you there to apply for bail – that is where everybody starts. My first case was in Supreme Court, that’s exceptional; you have to start from the Magistrate Court. I agree that lawyers should be exposed to multi-disciplinary curriculum, the broader the education, the better you are equipped to cope with challenges of future living. Not every lawyer does global work, not even in England. But for those who do, there are many courses for them as they grow such as the International Bar Association seminars and various places to get knowledge. But they are quite expensive and not for beginners.
The DG Law School told the new wigs that they have been equipped to create jobs rather than wait for jobs.
Yes. Very limited numbers need to practice. You need capital, clients, experience, and good health. It doesn’t come so easy but other jobs are there for a lawyer such as secretary in local government, banking among others.
Do you have any advice for the country on the proposed National Dialogue?
My advice is that the country should devolve power and functions to the second and third tiers of government. There is too much powers in individuals such as president, governors and local government chairmen. Let us strengthen the institutions. We have to stop high profile contract announcements such as the Federal Executive Council meeting every week to announce contracts, whereas projects should be done on a regular basis at the very lowest levels by agencies.