By Dennis Agbo

Allegations of corruption at both the Bar and the Bench in Nigeria’s judiciary system took center discussion at the 2024 Law Week of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Enugu branch, on Tuesday.

Even though the theme of the conference was “Good Governance and Socio-Economic Stability: The Imperative of the Rule of Law in Nigeria,” Judicial officers and senior lawyers present at the Justice Innocent Umezulike Auditorium in the Enugu state High Court Complex, shifted unconsciously in their seats as the issues of alleged corruption among lawyers and the Judges were dissected.

Present at the law week included the Chief Judges of Enugu and Ebonyi States, Justices A.R. Ozoemena and Elvis Anagu Ngene, respectively. Other Judges of the Enugu State High court present included Justices H.O. Eya, Chinwike Ogbuabor (PhD), the President of Customary Court of Appeal in Enugu state, Justice G.C. Nnamani, among other High court Judges in Enugu state.

Also present at the law week were senior lawyers such as Mrs. Justina Offia (SAN), Prof Joy Ezeilo (SAN), the Attorney General of the state, Dr. Kingsley Udeh; the NBA chairman in the state, Chief Venatus Odo; Chairman of Young Lawyers Forum in Enugu state, Bar. Ikechukwu Asogwa, Bar. Uche Maduemesi, among many other top lawyers both from within and outside Enugu state.

Keynote Lecturer and a Judge of the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, Justice Peter Obiorah in his paper presentation, spoke on the “Law practice: The Lawyer in the center of Judicial Corruption – Nagging need for practice reforms.”

According to the appellate Judge, a lawyer should always, not only in discharge of his professional duties, act honourably and in a benefiting manner in all his endeavours, but must be free from fraud, deceit and falsehood; and be good and virtuous in behaviour and in character.

He however noted that there are numerous allegations of the evil practice of corruption against judicial officers in which no court, not even the highest court in Nigeria, is spared from the allegations.

The Jurist, whose paper was presented by Justice Eya, stated that as someone who is involved, he was aware that most of the allegations are unfounded but that one cannot gloss over the fact that there are instances of corruption or appearances of corruption in the judicial system.

“In most of the instances, lawyers, and I dare say, senior lawyers, are fingered as the link or conveyor of the deadly virus. There are situations when a litigant asks his lawyer to reach or establish contact with the Judge or Magistrate. The clear objective of the contact is to bribe the Judge or the Magistrate.”

Justice Obiorah however charged the NBA and every other judiciary stakeholder to implement reforms such as the establishment and enforcement of strict ethical guidelines for the lawyers and urged the National Judicial Council, NJC, to take on the issue of misconduct of Judges with seriousness.

Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mrs. Justina Offia in her discussion and review of the lecture gave many instances of unethical behaviours among practicing lawyers, to the extent that when a lawyer is aware he has a bad case, rather than approaching his client with fidelity, he would go on to employ outrageous tactics such as disqualifying Judges from the matter on false allegations of vested interests which in most cases are hoax.

Chairman of the NBA in the state, Chief Venatus Odo stated that the law week presented the lawyers an opportunity to look at themselves and their society in a mirror and make some determinations regarding what is reflected on them.

Odo said that the theme of the conference was to espouse the threat posed by the poor regulation to the future of legal practice, culminating to the sentiments of whether or not governance of the time has served its most fundamental purpose of guaranteeing the security and welfare of the people.

Chairperson of the Law week, Prof. Joy Ezeilo (SAN) maintained that access to justice was crucial to achieving Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, and in the promotion of inclusive growth, noting however that “a significant number of Nigerians lack protection primarily due to poverty or marginalization.”.