________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Copyrights 2007 S.O &T Communications LLC, All Rights Reserved
www.africanexaminer.com. Click Here to Contact Webmaster
People & Events
                   African Examiner Online...uplifting AFRICA
\
\
Useful Links
Media Links
Fight in the parliament
African Newspapers

You need Java to see this applet.
Visit African Examiner | Blog | Sports | Guest Book
Advertisement
_____________________

Advertisement
_____________________

Charge-And-Bail Lawyers: Symphony Of A Perfunctory Theatrics Legal
Education
Nasiru Nash Haruna Esq.
nasharuna@yahoo.com

The Sunday Punch online newspapers publication of December 30, 2007 on
“Good and ugly sides of charge-and-bail lawyers” by Kayode Ketefe with all due respect is
an exposition of the quality and reliability of Nigerian legal education which is designed to
produce apprenticeship lawyers rather than critical thinking lawyers armed with the didactic
practical knowledge of the law as it relates to social, cultural, health, technology and
political aspects of our society. My heart goes to those struggling young Nigerian
professionals who are branded charge-and-bail (CAB) for patronizing magistrate courts.
This practice is across the board of the profession in various forms.

If CAB is soliciting clients at magistrate courts, it is akin to lawyers soliciting corporations
for clientele as external solicitors. Neither is it different from lawyers using executive
membership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) as a spring board for governmental
appointment as attorney general or members of an agency or commission. The only
difference being that the former merely apply for bail on behalf of the accused person while
the others solicit for appointment as external solicitors or present themselves as government
critiques with the intention of being appointed as government officials.

Whatever the reasoning, they are all in violation of Article 33 of the Rules of Professional
Conduct that bars lawyers from direct or indirect solicitation for clients. Two wrongs
cannot make a right. Even in American, ambulance chasing has now gone beyond lawyers
visiting accident scenes to open radio, television and newspapers advertisement that could
be direct solicitation, which is prohibited in Nigeria.

Nevertheless, the Nigerian legal education just like any other aspect of Nigerian education
does not meet the challenges of 21st century lawyers since lawyers successes are often
attributed to pupilage experience that is analogous to articleship or apprenticeship as
opposed to rigorous didactic practical training. Law school education is not necessary
wherever pupilage is in place, as it is mere apprenticeship, which is devoid of any critical
thinking of social, political, economic, health and technological concerns that connotes
dynamic process of conceptualizing, analyzing, and applying information as a guide to
actions. Articleship has no structured process for setting goals and actualizing such goals.

Law is not just an act but also an “instrument of social engineering” which transcends
every facet of human endeavour. Therefore it is imperative that lawyers look beyond
victories in court and predict the basis and outcome of issues.  Hence Nigeria through her
lawyers in ! collaboration with the UNO has created huge refuge crises for Nigerians being
deported from their ancestral home in Bakkasi.

The foundation of any profession starts with the introduction of basic fundamentals or
procedures. The fundamentals are taught and practiced throughout the duration of the
program. In this instant, it is the Nigerian laws of evidence, legal drafting and conveyancing,
and criminal and civil procedures as they keep reoccurring in every course.

This structure, except the law of evidence, is introduced last without much practical
orientation in the university. So the law graduate has little or no practical training or even the
slightest critical thinking on simple issues of law and politics or simple societal desires. This
gives room to articleship of Mugo Park legal training with skimpy and deplorable income.
Lawyers have no repeated exposures and demonstrations of structured advocacy, or
conveyancing, or intellectual debates, or practical skills and creativity in simple legal issues,
or even corporate legal advising as diversified as the profession.

They are inundated with theories like any other Nigerian profession, except theatre acts,
without first hand practical experience. There is no Nigerian law faculty that has a legal
clinic session or legal stimulation lab where students can demonstrate and rehearse theories
learnt in class. Even majority of the legal educators have no practical experience in any field
of law be it litigation, administration or even politics. They were hired right away from
colleges after national youth service corps (NYSC) to maintain and preserve the status quo
of lack of intellectual competition and/or critical thinking.

This lack of intellectual competition and/or critical thinking lead lawyers to participate as
ministers in illegal and criminal governments that violated human rights abysmally and
caused members of the executive committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to use
their positions to solicit and accept appointment as Attorney-General of the federation or
members of other governmental agencies. Even so, there are no sanctions by the NBA
against such inglorious misconduct, since it is a mere resume bolster. NBA is a not for
profit organization whose opinion with open mind should be based on research and
investigation, that should be widely published, advertised and even lobbied for possible
adoption by any government and/or any legislative body.

Thus NBA has no set goals or objectives for a greater and better  Nigeria, apart from
deriding government’s policies for which it has no concrete solutions. Some of its executive
members have various hidden Individual ambitions. What happens is that some NBA
executive members like other professional leaders readily criticize government to be part of
that government? The body does not even welcome suggestions and solutions from the
public.

The NBA ought to be in the forefront of providing legal education to Nigerians through
various mass media. Such education would not only guarantee the rights of Nigerians, but
would create jobs for young lawyers. For example how many Nigerians know that they
have the right to sue for negligence under the following instances: failure of police to
respond to distress call which caused a citizen damage or traumatic experience, or failure of
any government to repair a sink hole which caused road accident or even death, or failure of
INEC to ensure a peaceful election knowing well that Nigerian politicians are criminally
violent and such violence could cause death or traumatic experience and did cause death or
traumatic experience to innocent voters, or failure of political parties to call their supporters
to order during election knowing that their supporters are disorderly and could engage in
violent and criminal misconduct that  caused harm to innocent voters, or military
harassment of voters on election day when they ought to be in Bakkasi defending our
refugee brothers created by united nations international court of justice in collaboration with
Nigerian leaders, or failure of hospital to follow trauma protocols in treating accident victim,
or failure of a university to provide adequate security to prevent violent secret cult actions
that caused death, rape or post traumatic stress, disorder, or lawyers knowingly indulging in
scam (419), or  a government official knowingly using government funds to fund political
organizations and  religious bodies, or  religious leaders, traditional rulers and state
governments knowingly allowing their followers and citizens to kill and maim non-members
of their religion and non-indigenes? The list of green area of litigation to refine our society is
endless as that is the goal of law in general as an instrument of social engineering.

Though, NBA can sanction any attorney general or director of public prosecution who
maliciously prosecute or cause the unlawful detention of another citizen or collaborates with
government to disobey court orders. Yet there is no evidence of NBA sanctioning judges
that were found corrupt in the early 2000s or lawyers openly paraded by the police for
fraud.  Lawyers are the precursor to make this happen. This can only happen through an
effective bar leadership that provides continuous legal education for lawyers and the general
public at large.

A bar that challenges and seek review of antiquated laws and ensures that a director general
of any commission that has power to review corporations does not sit in the board of
corporations he or she ought to supervise as this is the greatest height of unprofessionalism
and irresponsibility. For a judge cannot be a judge in his own course. That Babangida’s law
prohibiting tinted windshield of vehicles is anachronistic and antithetical to modern
medicine, therefore should be expunged from our law books. This is how a 21st century
lawyer thinks. Educating people and thinking beyond application for bail or using executive
membership of NBA to solicit governmental appointment.

Lawyers have the responsibility to promote justice by ensuring equal opportunity and
accessibility to justice. NBA can only achieve this through mass media education.

In any case the Nigerian legal education needs complete surgical overhaul that would bring
out the best and brightest legal minds in the world whose reasoning and actions would
transcend monetary benefits and personal aggrandizements, but would focus on impacting
lives regardless of race, tribe, creed, colour or financial standing.

Therefore, the Nigerian Law School should be phased out and in its place should be the
Council of Legal Education solely responsible for the conduct of general bar exam and
scrutiny for call to bar. The council of legal education and NBA should jointly be responsible
for accreditation of law schools and ensure that no new law school is opened in the next
five years until all faculties of law, which thereafter become schools of law, meet the
following requirements:

Provision of sophisticated library and student learning centers with Internet facility, legal
clinics and legal stimulator labs, at least 1,200 or more hours of legal clinic, court and
chambers attachment with proof of work done.  The body of benchers in collaboration with
the Nigerian Bar Association should call for a public hearing on the way forward for a new
and vibrant legal education that is practical and obtainable by any Nigerian and inculcate
critical thinking in its syllabus and emphasize practical training rather than theories as it is
now done. NBA should desist from mere criticisms of government to actual participant by
identifying problems and setting down the solutions and lobbying the legislature for
legislation for their adoption or invoking the judiciary for judicial review of administrative
actions as the case may be. Therefore, Nigerian professionals, except theatre act, what is
your policy?

Nasiru Nash Haruna Esq wrote from Charleston, SC USA
nasharuna@yahoo.com