TDWriting this has been with mixed emotions. For years I held Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, in very high esteem. Yet there come moments in our professional lives when we must set personal regard aside and speak plainly about conduct that threatens the standing of the entire Bar.
As lawyers we owe duties that extend well beyond any individual client or colleague. High standards are expected of us at all times, and the public is entitled to see those standards enforced without fear or favour.
One further reason for writing is the curious silence that has greeted the London judgment. Many appear content to pretend that nothing of real consequence occurred in that English courtroom. That pretence cannot be allowed to stand.
The recent decision of the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee to suspend Chief Ozekhome from the rank of Senior Advocate pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings has understandably generated debate.
Any honest discussion of the matter must, however, begin where the facts began: in the proceedings before the UK First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) concerning the property at 79 Randall Avenue, London.
In a judgment that can only be described as a judicial indictment, His Honour Judge Ewan Paton found that the entire claim advanced on behalf of the purported applicant was “built on forgery and deception.” Documents placed before the tribunal , including a Nigerian international passport, identity papers, witness statements, a purported death certificate and communications supposedly emanating from medical personnel ,were exposed as fabricated. The so-called “Tali Shani” was found never to have existed as a real person. The tribunal concluded that the proceedings constituted an abuse of process.
That judgment did not merely dismiss a claim. It exposed, in open court on foreign soil, the participation of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in the presentation of forged Nigerian documents for the purpose of claiming property. The shame is not personal alone. It stains the Nigerian Bar and, by extension, the country. It was this public humiliation, and the clear evidence of professional misconduct it disclosed, that properly prompted the intervention of the Attorney General of the Federation, the filing of criminal charges, the activation of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee on a petition of infamous conduct, and the subsequent action by the LPPC in respect of the SAN rank itself.
Some have sought to divert attention to questions of jurisdiction , whether the LPDC or the LPPC has acted within its powers, or whether one body has overstepped the other. These are, with respect, small-minded distractions. Both bodies exist to protect the integrity of the legal profession. Their functions are complementary. Those who reduce a grave matter of professional misconduct to a game of jurisdictional ping-pong are either missing the point or seeking to shield the real issues from scrutiny. They should desist.
The SAN rank is not a right. It is a privilege conferred on those expected to exemplify excellence, integrity and ethical leadership. When that privilege is abused, the response must be swift, severe and exemplary. Anything less tells the public that the Bar protects its own at all costs. It is not as though the LPPC has been unaware of troubling conduct by holders of the rank. Only recently, six senior advocates caused a notice to be published in a national newspaper calling upon all and sundry to disobey a valid and subsisting judgment of the Federal High Court. The Committee appeared to look the other way.
The LPPC’s decision to suspend Chief Ozekhome from parading or using the SAN title is a welcome first step. It preserves a measure of public confidence and signals that the highest honour in the profession carries the highest scrutiny. But it is not enough.
The SAN title is an honour. The right to practise law is a statutory licence granted by the Supreme Court and regulated under the Legal Practitioners Act. Section 11 of that Act empowers the LPDC to strike a practitioner’s name from the roll, suspend him from practice, or admonish him. These are not symbolic measures. They are the real sanctions that protect the public.
If we content ourselves with removing the title while permitting the lawyer to continue full practice, we achieve very little. The public will rightly regard it as cosmetic discipline , a slap on the wrist dressed up as accountability. Deterrence will fail. Other lawyers will conclude that the worst that can happen is the loss of a prefix before one’s name. That is not discipline; it is theatre.
Consider, for the sake of argument, a consultant physician in a teaching hospital who is found to have falsified medical records or committed serious professional misconduct in the course of his duties. Would it be adequate for the relevant regulatory body to withdraw only his consultancy title or fellowship while allowing him to continue practising medicine without restriction? Or take the case of a chartered accountant discovered to have certified false accounts or engaged in fraudulent practices. Would it suffice to remove his designatory letters from the Institute while permitting him to continue signing audit reports and offering services to the public? The answer in both cases is plainly no. Such an approach would be condemned as a failure of regulation and a betrayal of public trust. The legal profession cannot claim a different standard for itself.
Criminal prosecution, important as it is, cannot be the sole response. The criminal courts deal with offences against the state. Professional discipline addresses breaches of the higher standards the Bar imposes upon its members. The Attorney General’s constitutional power to withdraw criminal proceedings does not erase professional responsibility. Self-regulation is not optional; it is the foundation of the Bar’s claim to public trust.
This matter must be resolved without delay or favour. The LPDC must move with dispatch to conclude the disciplinary proceedings. Where the evidence warrants , and the findings of the London tribunal provide a strong foundation , the appropriate sanction should be suspension from practice or, in the most serious cases, striking off. Half-measures will only deepen the cynicism that already exists about the legal profession in Nigeria.
It is regrettable that the punishment, or more precisely the disciplinary process, was not swift. One is left to wonder what accounts for the apparent hesitation. It is equally a matter of shame that many senior voices within the profession , those who would ordinarily not hesitate to speak on matters affecting the Bar’s image ,have gone mute on this occasion.
The public is watching. Clients are watching. Young lawyers who still believe that integrity matters are watching. Every day that passes without firm accountability further erodes the credibility of the entire Bar. It is partly for reasons such as this , our seeming reluctance to impose meaningful consequences on erring senior members , that other countries sometimes look down on us as a nation when professional misconduct of this gravity arises.
The SAN rank was never meant to be a shield against consequences. It was meant to be a mark of those who can be trusted with the highest responsibilities of the law. The time for technical distractions and jurisdictional hair-splitting has passed. The time for firm, transparent and proportionate discipline is now. The Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee must do its duty. The LPPC has taken a necessary step. The next steps must be more consequential.
Anything less will confirm the worst suspicions about how the profession treats its most senior members when they err. And that, more than any single case, is what truly threatens the future of the Nigerian Bar.
Charles Ude, Esq.
Lawyer and Author
Email: Charlesude2014@gmail.com
