Apparently worried by the incidence of enablers’ role that some lawyers allegedly play in high-profile cases of economic and financial crimes, the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, recently lashed out at legal practitioners engaged in such illegal and morally reprehensible acts. He pointedly accused some lawyers of colluding in financial frauds and illicit financial flows, thereby enabling corrupt practices to thrive in Nigeria. Speaking at the opening of the sixth Annual Criminal Law Review Conference in Abuja, the EFCC helmsman described lawyers’ involvement in transferring massive funds to offshore accounts in tax havens as a major concern for the anti-graft agency. Olukoyede also alluded to high-profile cases where lawyers helped their clients to fleece the state, corporate organisations and individuals. Specifically, he cited the P&ID scam, the Mambilla Power Project and the Sunrise power plant as typical examples of how some lawyers aided dubious foreign investors to defraud the nation. In his words, “The most traumatic discovery of the EFCC in recent years was the subjugation of national interest and well-being to personal interest by lawyers who aided foreign briefcase investors to fleece the nation in dubious transactions.”
The EFCC chairman has ample reasons to be outraged by the detestable turn of events because the professionals allegedly aiding and abetting corrupt practices are supposed to be officers in the temple of justice. Incidentally, he is a lawyer too and he knows the expectations of the state and society from the average legal practitioner. Nonetheless, Olukoyede may have to be circumspect in his utterances, in addition to being specific and unequivocal about the allegations he makes. The reaction of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to his recent allegations is suggestive of a blanket profiling of lawyers as corrupt by the EFCC. If the chairman’s allegations had been more measured, specific and unmistakable, such a confusion, as it were, would not have arisen. It is instructive that the NBA president admitted that the association has its own fair share of bad eggs just like in any other profession, but this bitter truth does not in any way warrant the tarring of all members of the profession with the same brush. Specificity is crucial.
Certainly, regular disclosure of established and proven cases of gross misconduct by legal practitioners will help in shaming those who have breached the ethical boundaries. Besides, it is not enough to make allegations; the EFCC chairman must prosecute those corrupt lawyers and make an example of them. We urge Olukoyede to endeavour to be more emphatic and unequivocal on issues in his speeches, which are capable of multiple interpretations. For instance, even when he does not suggest that all lawyers are colluding with criminals, he should endeavour to stress that fact by way of repetition and emphasis so that members of the public will realise that he is not alluding to all lawyers as criminals. In other climes, such a repetition may be unnecessary and indeed unwarranted, but in an environment where one is prone to being misunderstood or misrepresented either out of ignorance or mischief, it may be expedient to go that route.
It is gratifying that both the EFCC and NBA have a crucial point of convergence, which is the need to stamp out corruption from the society. This laudable objective can only be achieved through collaborative efforts, not by seemingly antagonistic tendencies. The NBA president has offered the EFCC the services of its internal disciplinary mechanisms for dealing with aberrant members: the agency is urged to accept the offer. The Nigerian legal profession is well known for its robust disciplinary mechanism which is delivered through the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC). This body is on record to have consistently demonstrated its commitment to maintaining professional ethics by investigating and prosecuting cases of misconduct against erring lawyers. The anti-graft activities of the EFCC stand to get a boost if the agency can work closely with the NBA through the LPDC, and all it needs to do is to report suspected erring lawyers to the committee.
It is in the overall interest of the country that either directly or by subterfuge, no party lives in self-denial. For instance, it is difficult for Nigerians to accept that there is no corruption among lawyers in the country. Members of the NBA themselves have been known to condemn corruption in the bar and bench. Thus, it is not out of place to be concerned about corruption, but it is also a fact that the population of lawyers who engage in corrupt practices pales into insignificance when compared to the total population of lawyers in the land. Again, it is erroneous to surmise that legal practitioners seen around or handling cases of corruption for their clients are corrupt. That would be ludicrous. Lawyers have a duty to hold briefs for and defend their clients who are suspected to have breached the law, and having a lawyer in a criminal case is the right of every citizen. This right is so sacrosanct that the state is even obligated to provide legal representation to any citizen who cannot afford it. Thus, no legal practitioner should be adjudged corrupt just because (s)he has clients that have allegations of corruption levelled against them by the anti-graft agency. What is unethical and criminal is for lawyers to willfully go outside their briefs to help corrupt persons to facilitate and/or perfect their act of corruption or any other criminal acts against the state, corporate organisations or individuals. That is patently antithetical to the oath of office of any legal practitioner whether in the private practice, corporate organizations or public sector.
The denigration of the integrity, deliberately or inadvertently, of the two major planks – the bar and the bench – upon which the justice system rests has the potential to create an atmosphere of despondency and erosion of public confidence in the system as a potent mechanism for the enthronement of the rule of law and social reengineering. Therefore, circumspection is strongly urged on the part of the EFCC chairman regarding his incessant and alleged uncomplimentary public utterances that tend to portray lawyers as criminals. Even though he would appear to have always, albeit perfunctorily, qualified his public statements in that regard, there is no harm in being more circumspect and unequivocal. Perhaps it is even time that he began to act more and talk less. And on the part of the NBA, it should by way of deliberate and intentional, coordinated interplay of more rigorous sensitisation, intense advocacy and deterrence, try to rein in the few among its members who readily cross the line from the legitimate and noble terrain of availing their clients of legal and professional services to the felonious territory of criminality.
