By Lillian Okenwa
The President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Yakubu Maikyau , Senior Advocate of Nigeria has again called for the recusal of the Chairman, Body of Benchers, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN while maintaining that the controversial Kunbi Ogunde email has brutally hurt the legal profession.
Maikyau had written a similar letter last year asking Olanipekun to step aside and not preside over the call to bar ceremony of the Nigerian law School scheduled for Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 December, 2023. He described the continuous silence by the Body of Benchers to the ‘indictable letter’ of Mrs. Adekunbi Ogunde, as ‘disgusting, and a betrayal of the confidence Nigerians have in the legal profession.’
Olanipekun however, went ahead to preside over the Call to bar.
In the 13 January 2023 letter titled “A Call to Salvage the Image, Reputation, and Integrity of the Body of Benchers and the Legal Profession in Nigeria and for the Resignation of the Chairman – Chief Wole Olanipekun, OFR, CON, SAN addressed to the Secretary, Body of Benchers and which was copied to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Honourable Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, all Life Benchers and all Benchers, the Bar president insists that the controversial email has “made a caricature of the Nigerian Court system and brought the entire legal profession to abject disrepute.”
Part of the letter reads:
“There is no gain-saying that this email has brutally hurt the legal profession; it made a caricature of the Nigerian Court system and brought the entire legal profession to abject disrepute. It is disgusting! That this lie was told and allowed to be fed to Nigerians is the greatest assault on our collective psyche. Why then do we go to Court, if this was true? Of course, this is not who we are, but we would appear to celebrate the content of the email by our silence and the insistence by the Chairman to continue to preside over the affairs of this Body without any remorse whatsoever, over the embarrassment which the entire legal profession is subjected to on account of the content of that email.
“What is even more worrisome is the fact that, this Body did not in any way react to the email to demonstrate to Nigerians, that what was said of the Body and the entire profession was false and that the legal profession cannot be manipulated by the Chairman, or any other individual or group of persons. Interestingly, there was no denial that the said email was indeed written, and whether the content of the email was authorised or not is immaterial to the impression created by its content. The only way this Body can demonstrate that it “consists of men of the highest distinction in the legal profession” is to come out and speak boldly against that negative narrative and refuse to celebrate it in anyway under any guise.
“I am aware that the law firm of Wole Olanipekun and Co, has been excused from any liability regarding the email in issue, and I am not and will not question the correctness or otherwise of that decision. Suffice it however to say that the public reactions that trailed the emergence of that email and the decision exonerating the law firm would give a bit of insight into how this Body is presently being viewed by some members of the profession and the Nigerian public…”
Read the full text of his letter.
