Court Boycott By Lawyers is in Nigeria's Interest

The Nation Monday May 21, 2007 p.37

APRIL POLLS


Court boycott by lawyers is in Nigeria’s interest


Adesina Ogunlana read Law as a second degree at the Lagos State University (LASU) and was called to the Bar 13 years ago. He obtained his first degree – a Bachelors of Arts in English Studies from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife in 1985. Ogunlana spoke with FOLUSO OGUNMODEDE on the court boycott by lawyers to protest the outcome of last month’s elections, the judiciary and sundry issues.

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) boycotted the courts over what it called “political robbery” of the April polls. Do you support such protest from an association that is not a trade union?

I support the action, I support the NBA for doing that. Who says NBA is not a trade union?

Essentially, what do you do as a trade union? You try to fight and protect the interest of members.

The NBA, as an association of lawyers, must give direction to the country in line with the dictum of the first Nigerian lawyer, Sapara Williams, who said: “in a developing country, such as ours, a lawyer must live for the direction and guidance of his people.”

The NBA is a pressure group and in boycotting the court, they are even making sacrifice. That day, we are not going to earn money.

If lawyers are, indeed, leaders of their community, then, it is proper for them to show or exhibit or at least reflect the views of the majority of reasonable people in their community.

While we go on strike, attention will unnecessarily be drawn to the issue of gross electoral banditry that was afflicted on the Nigerian nation last month.

Don’t forget, the NBA is not endorsing riot or asking people not to go to tribunal. But as a group of leaders in their community, they are showing to the world their displeasure on what happened during the April general elections.

The late Chief FRA Williams SAN) said in 2002 “that strike, in whatever form by lawyers, is a breach of contract.” Do you not see the symbolic strike by the lawyers’ umbrella group as a betrayal of the trust of clients?

The late FRA Williams, may his soul rest in eternal peace, was indeed a great man. But people like him are entitled to their opinion. What is the calling of a lawyer? It is essentially to see that justice is done. Not only beyond winning cases, but to ensure that justice and conflict are resolved through legal means.

Is there any law that says that strike is illegal? No! the most important thing is to conduct your self well.

Apparently, the advice of the late legal icon was not relevant as you can see from lawyers’ protest in Pakistan.

In other words, political and legal protests are legal. It will be improper for anybody to condemn it, the planned protest as a mode of thuggery. For instance, when a former Chief Judge banned The Squib publication in the court premises, I could go to court against her or I could choose to resist.

But I chose resistance and at the end of the day, they backed out. Would you call that thuggery? No!

If you choose the legal option, there may be an elite conspiracy.

In other words, Chief Williams’ position is wrong. We are fighting for Nigeria.

On the consequence of the strike being a breach of contract as the late FRA put it. I strongly disagree with the late legal icon. What did he mean by a breach of contract? We embarked on strike in 2002 because the filing fees were too high. How our clients now complain when we protested against the fees then. Those clients, let me ask you, when client did not sue the court? Even when he died, courts were closed in his honour for about three days.

JUSAN went on strike for a whole month. Why did the clients not sue the judiciary? That argument, with due respect to the late legal icon, is not tenable.

Are you saying because the clients neither sued the judiciary nor the lawyers, JUSAN’s boycott was right?

Chief FRA Williams, I am telling you could not have been right. Put yourself in the position of a client. The contract you have with your lawyer is to go to court to litigate. The lawyer has not said he id not going to court. He is only going on strike for a day. He does not say that he is not representing you.

But what he is saying is that on so-so date(s), he will not go on with the case because for your sake, we are taking a political stance. Even the planned strike is for your own sake because your mandate has been stolen. Democracy has been ridiculed and Nigeria’s future, sabotaged. Anybody that has committed political robbery is worse than an armed robber and unless it is checkmated, the court and justice system will be useless in the long run. So, lawyers are saying let us have a symbolic protest, you are saying it is illegal. Left to me, the strike should go on for two weeks. But our leader, Chief Olisa Agbakoba, is a “velvet” activist and moderate. Otherwise, I would have preferred two weeks for the symbolic protest to have the desired effect. We are leaders with responsibilities to the people.

We are talking of nation building here. We are talking of sacrificial patriotism. We are talking of checkmating political brigandage and bastardization of democratic norms which a section of the political leadership inflicted on the country. At that level, we should be talking of political redemption of our country and not private comfort. Private comfort cannot come first. Of course, we cannot deny the fact that boycott will cause discomfort in some quarters. We cannot make omelettes without breaking the eggs.

Our clients understand and they know that the planned strike is not selfish. It is for the benefit of us all. So, the question of betraying their trust does not arise.

Of course, assuming there is no strike, some cases could not have gone on due to a number of reasons, such as the absence of trial judge absence of witnesses, litigants, power outage, etc.

In such instances, the clients won’t die! Therefore, the short delay of one day strike would not injure justice so substantially.

Was anything wrong with the election that would propel lawyers to embark on a strike?

Yes, the organization was poor in the sense that election materials were not enough, did not come early, elections did not start early. Despite high condemnation by foreign observers, INEC Chairman rated it 80 per cent alright.

In fact, there was no election substantially except in places such as Lagos which happened to be the most peaceful in the South-West, if not the whole country. It was a charade.

Hearing of election petitions have begun. But there are fears that justice may be sacrificed on the altar of technicalities at the tribunals. Do you nurse such fears?

The problem is that of the attitude of election tribunals in Nigeria, where, usually, they have difficulties overturning rigged elections.

For instance, in the Buhari vs. Obasanjo election matter in 2003, at the end of the day, the court ruled that President Obasanjo won.

The system, under the new rules, is front-loading and filing. How do you establish proof that elections were rigged?

It is not enough to make claims. You must prove them. I made a prediction on a television programme that despite widespread complaints that there were irregularities during the elections, only a few politicians will go to tribunals because very few of them have proof or people who can come up to say what they saw or experienced during the elections. That is the problem.

Another problem is that INEC may hide documents on falsified results. These are, however, just challenges. Any serious contender will have people who can depose to affidavits or statements of what they saw.

If INEC proves uncooperative, the court is there to compel the agency to cooperate.

How would you assess the judiciary and the rule of law in the past eight years of Obasanjo’s administration? I mean what legacy is he leaving behind?

The judiciary has really thrived very well. In fact, we have legislative rascality and executive mischief. But, we have always been having judicial stability. Unlike other arms of the government, the judiciary had striven to flush out bad eggs.

The Eso panel was implemented and horrible judges have been flushed out, although some of them are still there. It is not yet uhuru. But we must commend the judiciary, Belgore,, Uwais and Kutigi. They have all put in their best into the development of the judiciary.

But for the judiciary, democracy would have been aborted. People should have confidence in the tribunals. The judges are afterall Nigerians. They knew what happened. They are not living on the moon. Those things happened in their presence.

I only ask lawyers to do their cases very well. I believe the tribunal will not rely on technicalities to strike out cases. Lawyers should package their cases very well.

I have faith in the tribunal. The whole world is watching them. So, they cannot afford to fail. We know that the integrity of the judges is at stake.

For instance, those we sent from Lagos – Adefope-Okojie, Olateru-Olagbegi, Okuwobi, and Ipaye are judges of high integrity. They cannot afford to disappoint and let their families, the Bar and the Lagos State Government down. If they do, they would return to Lagos.

Barrister Adesina Ogunlana attended the University of Ife, Ile-Ife for Bachelor degree in English Studies between 1981 and 1985. thereafter, he proceeded to Lagos State University (LASU) for his LLB in Law between 1989 and 1993.