- As SERAP asks President Tinubu to call Wike to order over recommendation that the legal practitioners’ disciplinary committee punish Odinkalu for degrading the profession
- Says Wike’s call is an affront to independence of the administration of justice and rule of law
Senior Advocate of Nigeria and 1st Vice-President, NBA (2008-2010); and Chair, NBA Human Rights Institute (2008-2010), Ikeazor Ajovi Akaraiwe, SAN has condemned the recommendation that Professor Chidi Odinkalu be recommended to the legal practitioners’ disciplinary committee for degrading the profession.
Akaraiwe, in a statement sent to Law & Sciety Magazine, said:
“I read the statement attributed to Minister Nyesom Wike calling for Professor Chidi Odinkalu to be hauled before the legal practitioners’ disciplinary committee for degrading the profession.
“In a desert of cowardice, Professor Chidi Odinkalu represents an oasis of truth and courage, and if it seems that he goes overboard sometimes, can anyone deny that we are dealing with now-systemic rot, requiring radical excision?
“Those who have degraded this legal profession are those megalomaniacs, and visibly amoral persons whose corruption, bad manners, public uncouthness, and drunkenness are on display to a perplexed public who once thought that the legal profession was the personification of everything noble. Not Professor Chidi Odinkalu.
“Those who have degraded the legal profession are those who, whenever they open their mouths manage to convey the impression that they are educated illiterates, glaring advertisements of the failure of education in Nigeria, yet occupy political spaces better occupied by the more properly educated, and who act most unlawyerly in the public spaces they occupy. Not Professor Chidi Anselm Odinkalu.
“We call ourselves ‘learned friends’; glibly pontificating that ‘others are educated while we are learned’, whereas the paradox of the unlearned learned and the ignoble noble in the public space who call themselves fancy titles, from Barrister to Honourable stares the nation in the face. These are the ones degrading the legal profession. Not Professor Chidi Odinkalu.
“Finally, ‘Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning! Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!”’- Ecclesiastes 10/16-17.
“If anyone has degraded the legal profession, please, it is certainly not Chidi. Look yourself in the mirror and see who to haul before the disciplinary committee.”
Similarly, the Socio-Economic Rights And Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the FCT Minister to withdraw his call asking the Body of Bencher to recommend Odinkalu for punishment.
SERAP, in a statement posted on its X (formerly Twitter) page, said:
“Mr Nyesom Wike, Minister of the FCT must immediately withdraw his apparently politically motivated reported call to Nigeria’s Body of Benchers to ‘invite and discipline’ human rights lawyer Chidi Odinkalu solely for the peaceful exercise of his human rights. We urge President Tinubu to call Mr Wike to order and instruct him to end the intimidation and harassment of Mr Odinkalu simply for exercising his human rights.
“Mr Wike’s call is an affront to the independence of the administration of justice and the rule of law. The call is illustrative of a broader pattern of harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders, activists, journalists and bloggers in the country. The Tinubu administration should ensure that all lawyers in Nigeria are able to exercise their human rights and carry out their professional duties without fear of reprisal, hindrance, intimidation or harassment.
“The UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers imposes clear obligations on the Nigerian authorities to ensure that lawyers are able to carry out their professional functions safely and free from intimidation, improper interference, or fear of reprisals, and that they shall not suffer, or be threatened with, sanctions for actions taken in accordance with professional duties, standards, or ethics. Lawyers, like other individuals, enjoy the rights to freedom of expression, belief, association, and assembly under the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended] and international human rights law, and are entitled to exercise these rights without suffering professional restrictions by reason of their lawful action.”
