By Innocent Anaba
LAGOS — An elderly lawyer, Pa Tunji Gomez, who has been championing the abolition of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, in the country, has asked a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, to declare as null and void,  section 5.1 of the Legal Practitioners Act and the Legal Practitioners Rules, which established and regulates the award of SAN.

Defendants in the suit are chairman of LPPC, the LPPC, the Attorney–General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, the Lagos State Judicial Service Commission and the Chairman of the Lagos branch of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Mr. Chijioke Okoli.

Gomez, who is also the chairman of the Movement for the Abolition of SAN, is urging the court to declare that the conferment of the rank of SAN on legal practitioners by the defendants is not transparent, arbitrary, discriminatory, oppressive to him and others, creates dichotomy at the bar and violates the constitutional provisions for equality.