NBA stamp, seal policy to weed out quacks – NBA c’ttee chair

The NJC recently recommended compulsory retirement for Abia Acting CJ, would you have called for stiffer punishment to serve as deterrent?  Any legal practitioner who will eventually grow to be a magistrate or judge and rise to become a CJ should live above board. He or she must be seen to lead by example. The […]

The NJC recently recommended compulsory retirement for Abia Acting CJ, would you have called for stiffer punishment to serve as deterrent?  
Any legal practitioner who will eventually grow to be a magistrate or judge and rise to become a CJ should live above board. He or she must be seen to lead by example. The recommendation to the Abia State government is a soft landing in other not to disgrace the CJ out of office, maybe he has put in more than 20 years on the Bench.
The NJC in the future should look at this kind of situation with stiffer penalty such as dismissal so that it can serve as deterrent. If it is just to retire, the man is going away with his entitlements and everything; what is the deterrence or the essence of punishment? The jurisprudence is to serve as a deterrent but if the essence of punishment is not to deter people then we have lost the jurisprudential aspect of punishment.    
What is the idea behind the stamp and seal policy of the NBA?
There is the need to really know the lawyers in Nigeria; the legal practitioners that have been dully called to bar, enrolled at the Supreme Court. The NBA is going a step further to ensure that it regulates the conduct of its members. It will do so by the issuance to every lawyer that is qualified and dully verified as having been called, has been enrolled and his records in the data base of legal practitioners in Nigeria, a stamp and seal so that for every legal instrument which that legal practitioner is going to append his signature, it must have his stamp and seal.
Under what power is the NBA carrying out this policy?
This is done, not just by the present administration of the NBA, under the leadership of Okey Wali SAN,  who is exercising that power pursuant to Rule 10 (1,2 &3 ) of the Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC) for legal practitioners in Nigeria, which specifically in Sub-section 1 says that: “A lawyer acting in his (her) capacity as a Legal Practitioner, Legal Officer, or Adviser of any Governmental Department or Ministry or any Corporation, shall not sign or file a legal document unless there is affixed on any such document a seal and a stamp approved by the NBA.”
 Subsection 2 defines what a legal document is, Sub Section 3, provides that non-compliance or failure to comply with the rules shall make the document so signed or filed ‘not to have been properly signed or filed’.
What is the implication of this to the average lawyer?
The implication of this is that if this policy takes off formally, in Nigeria, any legal document or correspondence to be filed in a court by any legal practitioner whether in private or in government institution that does not bear the stamp and seal of that legal practitioner, such legal document shall not be accepted.
When will this policy take off?
The present NBA administration is determined to ensure that within its tenure which expires August 2014, the stamp and seal policy takes off effectively. But this is only possible if the members of the 13-man committee saddled with this task are able to sensitize lawyers in Nigeria, which includes legal officers, lawyers in ministries and governmental organisations, advisers of government departments as well as lawyers in corporations such as company secretaries and those in banks, that are covered by the provisions of S. 10 (1) of the RPC.
Won’t it be correct to say that the stamp and seal policy is another revenue generation drive by the association?
For those looking at it from the point of revenue drive, they have to ask themselves how much they are going to pay to acquire the stamp and the seal. As a legal practitioner, who has spent several years in the university and at least a minimum of 12 months at the NLS to be called to the Bar and enrolled at the SC, how will he feel losing his revenue to a quack that has not passed through the NLS nor enrolled at the SC?  You will see bizarre cases today where quack lawyers are not only practicing in anonymous names that do not exist but gone to the extent of faking or forging the names of law firms or lawyers that have been dully called to the Bar. The quacks will prepare legal documents like deed of assignment and other documents which are the source of livelihood of legal practitioners and these forged documents would pass as if they have been prepared by legal practitioners. So the stamp and seal, if it is issued will go a long way to checkmate these and serve as more revenue for the legal practitioners.
We are likely to have a situation whereby lawyers would make more money in practice than they are losing now to fake lawyers and quacks in the profession?
We are looking at a situation whereby the NBA is able to achieve this for the legal profession so as to weed away some quacks from the legal profession. Secondly, I am privileged to be the alternate chairman of the database committee of the NBA. Right now in the database committee we are registering the lawyers, counter posing it with their enrolment at the SC with a view of having a database for all legal practitioners in Nigeria. So that when enquiry is made about any legal practitioner, especially as the NBA is often facing enquiries from outside the country about the status of lawyers who are dully called to the Nigerian Bar, there is not going to be total absence of accurate data of legal practitioners practicing in the country as is the case now.
I want to commend the authorities at the Nigerian Law School (NLS), they have substantially been able to have all those lawyers that have been called to the bar on the website of the NLS but this is still not enough and the NBA is taking this step which started from the previous administration to the present leadership of Okey Wali, SAN, in ensuring that we have accurate data. Unless we have accurate data, we may not succeed even in our stamp and seal policy. Even where a person has been verified as a lawyer dully called to the bar, dully enrolled at the SC, we may not be able to recommend that he should be issued with a stamp and seal. So am calling on all legal practitioners that have enrolled to ensure that they carry out their verification at different centres where their data would be dully captured. Apart from that, we are also taking biometrics, using finger prints to show that where two persons share the same name they would still be adequately captured.
Do you have any appeal to lawyers?
Nigerian lawyers must see themselves as legal practitioners and live by the entire ethics of the profession, develop and advance the society. When the legal practitioners are developed and honest and adhere to the rule of law and uphold constitutionalism, our society will be better and the political class will be shaped in accordance with the rule of law.