Not all cases should go to Supreme Court – Magaji

Some people see the legal profession as a money making venture but others see it as a vocation, in which you don’t even practice for money. How do you see the profession? It is the combination of the two because it costs me a fortune to set up my law office and it equally costs […]

Some people see the legal profession as a money making venture but others see it as a vocation, in which you don’t even practice for money. How do you see the profession?
It is the combination of the two because it costs me a fortune to set up my law office and it equally costs my parents a fortune to be able to sponsor me through secondary school, university and then to law school. As I always call myself, I am a local breed, I have never been to Lagos State until the time I was coming to the law school. What do you want my parents to do when I was going to Lagos for the first time? Of course they had to look for money, pay for accommodation, then there was no accommodation in law school, and all other expenses.
So to me it is the mixture of both. But I see it more as a calling that requires high standard of morality; you have to be very disciplined before you will be part of this profession because it is people’s trust that you manage. So I see it as a combination of both.

What is your assessment of the anti-corruption battle of the Buhari administration?
So far so good. I strongly believe that we can fight the anti-corruption war within the ambit of the Nigerian legal system, and do it successfully. That is to say we can still fight this war and still observe the rule of law.
In your opinion, is the Supreme Court of Nigeria overburdened, and if it is will you advocate for division of the Supreme Court.
I will rather have a different suggestion that there are certain cases that Court of Appeal should have final say over. For instance, issues of custody of children, marriage, let it end at Court of Appeal, you don’t need to take it up to Supreme Court.
Only constitutional issues in my opinion should go to the Supreme Court.

Recently, the Chief Justice of Nigeria threw a challenge at senior lawyers. He said the senior lawyers know the corrupt judges and he challenged them to name them. What is your reaction?
It is only a corrupt lawyer that will be able to identify his co-traveler. If he doesn’t indulge in it, he may not know it. And I can tell you that in my little years of practice, I go to court, I do my cases, and go. And I am comfortable because whichever way the judgment goes – either against me or in my favour – I will use it subsequently and in different cases. I give you an example; recently I lost the Taraba case but I equally won that of Shinkafi versus Yari.

There was a particular instance where you walked out on the court and it generated a lot of controversy, what is your reaction?
What happen that day at the tribunal was not walking out. I did remember that I informed the tribunal “my lord, may I withdraw from this case, in the situation where we have a pending appeal in the Supreme Court.”
I cannot see myself coming to argue the same appeal that is pending before the Supreme Court before the tribunal, but when my lord insisted to go on with the case, I said my lord, may I beg that I withdraw my appearance in this case.
I remember the chairman saying, “Yes your application is granted, I wish you best of luck, you can take your leave” and I bowed and took my leave.
What happened there was as if it was based on the application to the court that I wanted to withdraw from the case and my application was equally granted. That has nothing to do with contempt of court.

Is there any way you can leave a client and ask the client to take the brief away?
There is a standard I expect from my client, for instance if my client tends to insist in a particular mode of approach I will tell him no, if you know how to do it, why don’t you go and do it? Or if you have another lawyer that can do the way you want it then go and give him to do it. If a client interferes with my professional know-how I will leave the brief because to me this is the way I see it, this is the way I want to do it.
 Do you agree that the process of conferring the rank of SAN is restrictive and selective? Because at a point, nobody knows the criteria for picking the 15 or the 20 lawyers annually conferred with the rank. And whereas over 50 lawyers may qualify, only 10 or 15 may be conferred.
First of all we must see the appointment as a privilege and then look at the rules very well. If you look at the rules, it says recourse must be given to gender and the geographical zone you come from; these are captured in the rules. Where I come from especially my state (Niger State) actually by birth, I am from Abuja I was born here and was brought up here and worked in Abuja. I am the first indigenous lawyer to become Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
When I was called to the bar, I realised that the entire lawyers from the North put together were not up to 200 while the entire lawyers of a particular state were two times more than the entire lawyers from the North. So except you give regard to zoning which I think is reflective of the constitution for federal character,they may not be able to get it right. So I don’t have problem with that but my problem arises when some people criticize the system while they are not qualified or satisfy the requirements.