I weep for Nigeria and the legal profession. There is abuse of power everywhere. It is worse at the Bar. Dishonest leadership everywhere. Perversion of justice everywhere. Wickedness everywhere. Honest men and women are marked and pulled down for being honest and trustworthy in insisting that the right things be done at the Bar. Many people who want the best for the legal profession are not getting the derserved reward and protection from the profession they fight for the protections of its values and its best interests and traditions.
The legal profession seems now to be in conspiracy with itself and against some of its good members. The bar appears now to be encouraging people to actively pursue their own personal agendas against the best interests of the profession and some of its members to the irritation of decency and nobility of the profession. To be decent in the legal profession has become a vice instead of a virtue. But I must be different. You must be different. We all cannot be singing and praising abnormalities as virtues. No we all cannot.
Today I know that many who insist that the right things be done in the legal profession are facing persecution and punishment for their honest interventions and views. In the legal system where honesty ought to be a virtue it is now a vice to be honest in Nigeria.To support what is right is now seen as a vice rather than a virtue. To disagree with those in leadership positions is suicidal.To speak courageously and frankly about your beliefs and positions on things is now views as vices.
Leadership is despotic and corrupt infested in Nigeria in most cases. In the legal profession where honesty ought to be respected and be the hallmark mark for lifting and promotion, it appears to be vices now. Honesty and decency are now seen as a vices and viruses on the way to promotions. Being sycophantic and praise singing in favour of bad leadership is now what earns one prominent position and elevation in professional leadership.
But that was not what the founding fathers of the legal profession bequeathed to us and as codified in our rules of professional conduct in the legal profession. The rules of professional conduct in the legal profession are rules of honor and integrity that enjoy all members of the legal profession to be men and women of noble and ethical standards that protect and promote good governance and rule of law.
I weep for Nigeria because today the legal profession seems to be the bane of Nigeria justice and good governance. Today in Nigeria many things are done completely in disregard to the rule of law, the reasonable ethical standards of the legal profession and the expectations of rationality by men and women of virtue are fast becoming more difficult to achieve in the legal profession.
Badly behaved conduct appears more rewarding than good conduct that promotes purity of law and ethics of the profession. In all these many you expected to rise up and fight for what is right have gone to sleep for reasons that are difficult to comprehend. Many are silently disappointed but cannot openly speak out against the unjust and unfair practices going on in the legal practice and the profession generally.
Today transactional legal practice rooted in commercial interests is overtaking legal practice rooted in the best traditions of the nobility of the legal practice rooted in the rule of law and fidelity to good governance. Today democracy has become dictatorship and one man show, due to the silence and or conspiracies of the legal profession to give stamp of legitimacy to otherwise illegitimate processes that produced leaderships.
What is wrong is now seen as right. Abnormalities are treated as normal. In all, these institutions of justice are not free from blame and abdication of responsibilities. If gold gets rusted, then what do you expect from the iron. The profession of light is in conspiracy with darkness and darkness has now overtaken and overshadowed light of righteousness in Nigeria.
I weep for Nigeria. I weep for those who support darkness to overcome and overshadows the light of justice in Nigeria. I weep for us and those that destroyed the legacies of righteousness and those promoting evil over good in the legal profession. The best of traditions bequeathed to the legal profession, culture of respect rooted in the finest of traditions is far gone in the legal profession. I weep for the legal profession in Nigeria. I weep for generation yet unborn.
J. S. Okutepa, SAN
