We’re facing gross unemployment of lawyers – Niyi Akintola

As at the last count, there are about four or five aspirants for the NBA presidency.  Can we know how serious you are regarding the contest?Of all the emerging candidates, no one can claim to be as focused or committed as I am.  The truth of the matter is that I am a stickler for […]

As at the last count, there are about four or five aspirants for the NBA presidency.  Can we know how serious you are regarding the contest?
Of all the emerging candidates, no one can claim to be as focused or committed as I am.  The truth of the matter is that I am a stickler for principle and rules of the game.  The ban has not been lifted.  And there are sanctions for breaching the rules.  That is why I have decided to keep with the ambits of the rules and the law.
And at the risk of being immodest, I have said it several times; I have practiced in all the 36 states of the federation including Abuja, the Federal Capital.  And I am the only one of all the candidates that has that credential.
Even my worst enemy concedes that to me.  And to say that I am fronting for somebody, I regard that as an insult.  It has been the gimmick of my opponents.  But my supporters across the country know who I am.  To me, it is not a matter of life and death.  I am a professional lawyer.
 I have never, in spite of my involvement in the race, abandoned my practice for one day because I believe that Bar activism should be a vocation, not a profession.  It should not be something that some people will see as a means of livelihood.  That has been my position.  I have been canvassing that.  And I am going to practicalize it.
What is your take on the plight of young lawyers?
Nigeria is facing gross unemployment of lawyers because the system lacks true professionalism in her legal system compared with other developed countries, and the collapse of educational system in the country has affected the quality of lawyers graduating from the universities.
Lawyers in Nigeria are yet to key into what is going on in the legal system of developed countries. The older lawyers have been acquiring experiences year in, year out, but they are yet to put such experiences into practice, hence the under-developed legal system in Nigeria. The last set of lawyers called to the bar was over 5,000 and Nigeria has a total of 110,000 lawyers presently, to cater to the country’s 168 million population.
With the small number of lawyers compare with Nigeria’s population, there are still a large number of unemployed lawyers; some are yet to get employed five years after they were called to the bar.
On my Blackberry phone right now, I have over 100 applications from young lawyers. How these boys and girls got my pin number I don’t know but the painful thing is that many are yet to secure jobs after being called to bar. They don’t have chambers; they don’t have where to work.
There are rules guiding legal practice in developed countries so that there would be work for lawyers unlike here in Nigeria where older and notable lawyers get more than enough work to do while some do not have any work to do.
The rules over there are made to ensure there is enough for everybody. For instance, in the UK, there is limit to the number of cases a Queens Counsel (equivalent of Senior Advocate of Nigeria) can handle in a legal year because of their tax regime. But in Nigeria, a SAN can handle as many as 50 cases because there is no rule guiding the profession.
How much service have you rendered to the NBA to be qualified to lead the association at the national level?
I served as the Vice Chairman of my branch.  When the Bar went into crisis in 1992, I was in the forefront of those who brought it back to life.  I happened to be one of the very few that had meetings with Justice Akanbi who was the brain behind the formation of Conference of Chairmen and Secretaries that brought the bar back.  And I have said it, and I am repeating it, when the Bar was brought back in 1998, I paid the registration money of my branch.  I went to Chief Awomolo’s office in Ilorin to pay, even without consulting the branch, more so, as all the branches were to be registered afresh.
And I spearheaded the registration of many of the branches in the Southwest – Oyo, Ogbomoso, etc.  And beyond that, I have been a member of the National Executive Committee of the NBA since 1998.  I have served in the Disciplinary Committee of the NBA.  I am currently the Chairman of Local Government Legal Reform Committee.  I am also a Life Bencher.  I can go on and on like that.  So, those who don’t know, like I did say, my practice overshadowed all these.  I believe in being a core professional.  I don’t intend to allow Bar activities overshadow my practice.
If eventually you become the president of the NBA, what transformation should we look forward to under your leadership of the association?
I am looking forward to a better NBA.  I am looking forward to a period where lawyers, particularly the junior ones and incoming ones, would feel better secured that they are in a very right and level playing profession.  Take, for instance, recently the Law School produced over 5,000 lawyers. And you see, in this country, when you put the number of lawyers together, we are still less than 150,000.  And some people will say there are too many lawyers in Nigeria.  I say no.  To the population of about 160million, 150,000 lawyers are not enough.  
The reality actually is that presently, we don’t have enough lawyers in Nigeria.  I keep telling my fellow lawyers that ‘there is enough for people’s need but there is not enough for people’s greed’ as manifested in the case of those cornering the areas the younger lawyers should benefit from.  But God willing, by the time I’m given the opportunity to be the president of the NBA, there is definitely going to be reforms.  I will ensure that there are opportunities for young ones.  For instance, now, we have 774 local governments.  What stops us from having Legal Officers in all the local government areas we have in the country.  That, at least, caters for 774 lawyers.  In the same vein, we could look for parastatals, corporate organizations and even the Police Force.  There are several instances where there are shortages of personnel in the police prosecuting cases.  If lawyers are in charge of prosecuting cases, there will definitely be proper prosecution of cases, and dispensation of justice will be faster.
 And another thing we should take very good notice of is that the legal practice is fast becoming a big business in other climes.  The era of a one-man chamber is gradually fading away in those climes where you now see about 500 lawyers or more gainfully engaged in a single chamber.
I was in South Africa sometime ago and I visited the chamber of their former president, F. W. de Klerk – very broad and large  with hundreds of lawyers.  It is high time our law firms here in Nigeria were consolidated into legal consortiums where lawyers would work together and maximize our expertise thus taking our practice to the next level.  Already, that has been happening at the level of some Senior Advocates of Nigeria.  If you have cases, you contact your friends who are experts in that field and then you pool resources together so that you will have a robust case.