By DAYO BENSON, & BARTHOLOMEW MADUKWE

CHIEF Babatunde Olusola Benson (SAN) clocked 80 yesterday. For one who has practiced law for fifty years, he has many professional achievements in his kitty. He was the former Vice Chairman of Common-wealth Lawyers Association; former President, African Bar Association and former President, Nigerian Bar Association. He also holds honorary Doctor of Law, LLD of the Lagos State University (LASU) where he was legal adviser for many years.

In this interview, Chief Benson, who is also a member, Body of Benchers and member Disciplinary Committee of the Bar, spoke on his life at 80, his career and the legal profession, which he said is now infilterated by questionable characters. Excerpts:

AS you clock 80, how does it feel like as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria?
Just like every other birthday of one, 80 years also is a very special one, in the sense that in between the date of my birth July 4th, 1932 and July 4th, 2012 a lot of things have happened; of which I have to thank God. Most especially you referred to my status as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

I have had the opportunity of practicing law for 50 years, in between that is great achievement; and in between, I have practiced law as it should be because I have not added anything to it. I have always been either in court, tribunal or arbitration, which relates to the practice of the law. So I want to feel fulfilled in my chosen career. In between, I have played politics mainly in the profession, as treasurer of a branch, being the General Secretary of the National Association of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), President of the association, Chairman of African Bar Association and Vice Chairman of Common-Wealth Lawyers Association, there is nothing that could be more fulfilling than that.

You have practiced law for 50 years, what memorable moment would you want to recall now that you are marking your 80th birthday and 50 years of your profession?
The most memorable thing is that I have produced two lawyers. One of them is now handling my chambers and I think he is over ten or eleven years in practice. The other one, the elder sister, is a judge of the Lagos State High Court. What would be more memorable than that?

What of in the course of the practice of the profession itself because you mentioned some landmark cases which you handled in your memoir, when you celebrated your 70th birthday?

Like you rightly mentioned, if you look into my memoir, you will find a lot of cases there. I had to lead a very big chamber of my uncle (T. O. Sobowale Benson & Co). At the age of three years at the bar, I had to sit down as head of chambers to handle cases all over the country. Our chambers zeroed on mainly Insurance matters, which was all over the country. I had to travel far and wide in the country. There is no part of Nigeria that I have not been to.
I remember my first appearance in the Supreme Court was what you may call a case which was given to one by the government.

You know in government or in the practice of Criminal law, people who are convicted of murder charges, whether they like it or not, must go on appeal up to the Supreme Court. And this murder case that was won, was that this gentleman met his wife having affairs with a man, he was said to have killed the man. So he was convicted and he had to go through appeal to the Supreme Court. In such cases, they (accused persons) don’t have money to hire lawyers, the government had to pay us lawyers to appear for them. I was one of those lawyers who was called to handle this man’s case. The case led to what we call “Maliki Law”. It is an interesting case to me as a Christian and as a lawyer.

The other case was that five people were charged for murder. What happened was that by the Ebute Meta landing of the 3rd Mainland Bridge, there is a place called Makoko. At that time, there was no electricity in that area. These area boys, popularly known as touts, were fighting in that Makoko over illicit gin, so they decided someone was taking more. They started to fight one another. In between, one of them died.

My client ran out of the place and went to the Police Station to report that he has been stabbed. He stabbed himself, as was disclosed by people. The judge who handled the case is still alive today, Honourable Justice IShola Oluwa. So he convicted my client and two others and discharged the others. When my client was convicted he was sent to the gallows, to die by hanging.

Chief B.O. Benson (SAN).

And my client said “no way”. He said he wanted to urinate and went down to the toilet in the High Court with a policeman following him. He later requested for a bottle of water, which was given to him. My client then smashed the bottle given to him and stabbed himself. His intestine came out and he was taken to the General Hospital where he was given sixteen stitches. I was at home around 4pm when the news came up, saying that such a person convicted for murder had stabbed himself and stabbed the policemen. However, my client did not die. They took him to Kirikiri after coming out from the hospital.

I had to go and visit him at Kirikiri. They don’t allow rope in their trouser or whatever they have on, so he had to hold his trouser with handcuff on his feet. I saw him crying and I said “no, you are not going to die. Definitely not! You still have a chance to go appeal.” So we went on appeal and he was discharged because we raised a point of a doubt. Five people were fighting in darkness and they were using sharp objects; which of the sharp objects killed the man, could it be my clients own, could it be another person’s client own, and so on? The Supreme then said that there is a doubt already created, so my client was discharged. That is a very memorable one. So my client, today, is still alive and lives at the Mainland. He is a strong Muslim and whenever I see him, we just laugh over the matter.

There are other cases, the case that you referred to against Justice Lambo, who is a very close friend of my uncle and he went to a Lower Bench as a Magistrate. So when he came back to Lagos and retired (as a Magistrate), he could still go back to practice (as a lawyer). So he decided to go back to practice. We had a case in which a man was charged for manslaughter because he was driving a car and he had an accident in which somebody died.  He (Lambo) was appearing for the dependant of the person, while I was appearing for the insured of an Insurance company. He went on with the case and somehow he lost. Then he went to the Bench and became a judge of the High Court of Lagos State. Justice Lambo was one of those who encouraged me to do law because he was staying with my uncle.

And then this other case came up after he became a judge of the High Court and I had to defend the driver. It was at the junction, my client was driving a lorry and the deceased was riding a bicycle. The policemen stopped my client, he did not stop and he ran over the cyclist. So I have to defend the driver of the lorry. I appeared before Honourable Justice Lambo, who was my benefactor, whom I have had cases against and had a nice time.

Cross examining a policeman
I just cross-examined the policeman, “you stopped my client like that, did he stop?” The policemen said yes. The policeman said he did not stop. “Did you pass the cyclist?” He said he did not pass the cyclist. So thereby you created “Contributory Negligence” on both sides. So we won the case. There are other cases in my memo that are fantastic too. I feel really fulfilled. So when I retired at the age of 70, I had to put everything in black and white.

At what age did you stop going to court?
When I became 70 years, I stopped going to court. I remember when I retired some journalists came asking me why did I retire, saying that lawyers don’t retire. Well, I have had relationship with European Solicitors both overseas and here and I had a friend when we were handling a case in France. He said he retired at 60 years and I asked him why. He said he had been practicing for over thirty years and why carry more burden. I wanted to retire at 60 too but I did not; I retired at 70.

Also, elder brother of late F. R. Williams, Akintola Williams, who is an accountant, retired at 60. When people came asking why retire so early. He said that in his profession it is addition and subtraction. He said two plus two is four; and four minus two is two, so whatelse! And I said that is a good thing. We have had seniors like F. R. Williams practiced to the end of his life. I have practiced for 50 years and that is good enough.

Fifty years at the bar, what legacy would you say you are leaving behind for people in the legal profession?
I am not a politician but I played a professional politics. I was a treasurer of a local branch at NBA, I became the Secretary and also the President. In between, there are lots of things that I have contributed to that took me to various associations and I became the President of African Bar Association. I also give advice on legal matters even as I have retired. It is a good footstep that people can follow.

Recently, I was in a seminar on Criminal Law Administration of Justice. There was a provision of that law which says that if you steal land, you go to jail for stealing. So people were asking the Attorney General that how can one steal land when in the law of stealing there must asportation. You must take it away, how are you going to take land away? I knew what they were talking about was ‘Ajagun-Gbale’ (forceful acquisition of land). So I said to the Attorney General that such law is for Lagos State whose language is Yoruba. I advised them to put the law there (in Yoruba) and people will appreciate it that a law has been made against ‘Ajagun-Gbale’. They should leave such law and people will appreciate it.

Are you satisfied with the standard of the legal profession compared to what obtained in your time?
When I came in as a lawyer, we were 1,000 lawyers, now there are thousands of lawyers. When I was solicitor to Uniport, their legal adviser who had practiced law for seven years suddenly wanted to do his Masters’ Degree of Doctorate Degree, which he had to submit his script. So he went back to the law school to forge his script and they asked him if he had ever been convicted or sent out of the university.

He answered no to the questions. So when he was submitting his papers, he now went and dubbed it with white ink. His juniors in the department found out and wrote petition against him and he was arrested. He is presently in jail. He went into the university with false statement; he left there after being sent out of the polytechnic. He went to Jos and then went to the law school with such a statement. There are so many of such in the legal profession. We have what is called the ‘Disciplinary Committee’ and if you see what comes out there, you will just be sorry for this profession. In our days, there was no law school. When we apply to the Inns of Court, they will send our application to Nigeria and they must paste it in every High Court of the area you come out from, so that people could see.

The outgoing NBA President has said that he will fight corruption in the Bar and the Bench to a stand still, what is your take on this?
How many years does NBA President have to spend in office to fight corruption to a stand still, he will only have two years. Talking about corruption in the judiciary, in Lagos State alone we have 57 judges and over 100 magistrates. They are in their own cubicles everywhere. How do you know whether they are corrupt or not, if people don’t say it out.

Are you satisfied with the criteria used for the award of Senior Advocates of Nigeria?
Yes! One is satisfied with the criteria. In England, we used to have certain number per annum. We used to have here in Nigeria, five per annum. But then you find out that out of the five, three or four are from the Yoruba side because they are qualified. And then, it will become an issue of not having anybody from the East or North, even if they were qualified.
How they started it was that they will come to people like us and say ‘I want you to be a SAN, will you give me some cases’ because you must do some cases in court. And so we will give them out, that also is corruption.

I saw one from the current list of applicants for SAN and I was surprised. The people told me that they go to the High Court to buy cases and the cases were just about the police versus, police versus all arranged like that, and they will say he has done cases. The question of marginalization has eaten in, you must have 5 to Yoruba and so so number to this and that and people will say no they have not had enough. It is all with K-leg.

Who are your contemporaries in the legal profession?
My contemporaries in the legal profession are Honourable Justice Baba Alake. He is retired as justice of the Supreme Court. We qualified on the same date and we did exam on the same date. I recall when he took us to his house; he prepared food for us and went upstairs to sleep because he knew that we could not eat without taking beer. He is a strong Muslim, so he could not stay with us drinking.  Honourable Justive Morenikeji Onalaja, we call ourselves ‘16 of June’, for those of us who were called to bar on June 16, 1959. Alhaji Okunnu too is there. A good number of them are there and some are still practicing but I have decided to retire.

What would you want to be remembered for, as you celebrate your 80th birthday?
I used to preside over a body and recently the body came visiting, I told them Nigerians don’t rest, no matter the amount of money they have. Also, one has to be committed to whatever one does. My father taught me that and he called it ‘contentment’. People should be contented with what they have. If not, at 80 one will still be running after dollars. That is what my father left for me and that is what I want to leave for others.