Differentiating between sexually transmitted diseases, by Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

This question of the extent to which performance in the Nigerian legal profession can be considered a sexually transmitted disease is ultimately the question that the Federal Court must address in the case currently pending concerning the actions of the current Chairman of the Body of Benchers. It is an important question that, in the interests of the profession, deserves the utmost attention of all persons affected by the institutions of law in Nigeria.

In a country and an age where openness is not always considered a virtue, those who make it the currency of their daily lives are either idolized, compromised, or deified to the point of endangerment. On the streets of Nigeria, a person who openly addresses issues of public concern can be said to have “broken the table.” As a figure of speech, this usage is a double-edged compliment for resisting a national habit of sugarcoating reality in a bodyguard of avoidance.

However, tables can be useless without a chair or bench. If the table is scattered, the bench that goes with it can suddenly be of limited use. To paraphrase a Nigerian, lawyers and benches are like five and six. Judges and magistrates are referred to as members of the “bench.” In some countries, when lawyers need to discuss a matter in private in court with the judge, they “approach the bench.”

Even before they receive admission to the profession, their admission to the profession is monitored by a ‘Body of Benchers’. consisting of as stipulated in the Legal Practitioners Act, “Legal Practitioner with the highest distinction in the legal profession in Nigeria”. The self-proclaimed “Vision” (so) The aim of the body is to be a beacon of legal professionalism and to set standards for legal training, qualifications and conduct worldwide.

To achieve this, the Body of Benchers must at least themselves embody the highest standards of the profession. This could have been said of them many years ago.

These days, it seems, it is the Benchers who are at war with the Tables. In Nigeria’s Body of Benchers, the Tables are currently being scattered in a manner that exposes how the standards of the legal profession have become hostage to a capricious entitlement mentality of its leadership. Amid the daily dose of drama that defines Nigerian life, the spectacle that plays out in the Body of Benchers has been largely shielded from public attention. It is time to remedy this neglect.

Membership of the Body of Benchers used to adhere very closely to the statutory requirement of restricting it to persons of “highest distinction”. Today, some aspects of the body have degenerated into influence. For example, they have extended automatic membership to senior federal legislators who are lawyers, such as the Chairmen of both Houses of the National Assembly; and also to some Chairmen of important committees.

There is another reason why this matter deserves attention. For several weeks, the current leadership of the Body of Benchers has been attempting to intimidate journalists, reporters and platform providers, threatening them with unspoken consequences if they even dared to publish material on the current crisis in the Body. Those who had already published were sent instructions to remove the material, and threats of vicious consequences if they did not comply. This level of effort to suppress and attack the legitimate exercise of a lawful profession is both intolerable and unlawful. It may even be criminal. It would not be charitable to think that this has anything to do with the fact that the current Chair of the Body of Benchers is someone who left the police in still unclear circumstances before becoming a lawyer.

The Body of Benchers is a statutory body. Any status enjoyed by its members is conferred upon them by law. Therefore, the citizens have a duty to keep the body and its members in check.

Since the current crisis in the Body of Benchers has its origins ultimately in membership issues, it is important to look a little more closely at the issue of membership. The body is made up of two categories of members. Life Benchers enjoy lifelong membership. They may attain this status either ex officio or by dutiful long-term membership after at least five years. There are also Ordinary Members of the Body, whose membership is not for life. Members include both lawyers and judges. In the interests of equity, leadership rotates annually between judges and lawyers, so that if a judge chairs the body one year, a lawyer will chair the following year.

Membership of the Body of Benchers used to be very strict in its legal requirements of only granting it to persons of “highest distinction”. Today, some aspects of the Body have degenerated into influence. For example, they have granted automatic membership to senior federal lawmakers who are lawyers, such as the Chairmen of both Houses of the National Assembly, and some key committee chairmen. In fact, a former governor and serving minister with a reputation for “generosity” is one of the most famous Life Benchers. At the instigation of the Body, any success in the bloody art of electoral fraud in Nigeria is now considered to be the attainment of “highest distinction” in the legal profession.

But we digress. Among the committees set up within the body, an Appointments Committee screens candidates for membership, presumably to ensure that they meet the minimum requirements of the law. This committee is headed by a Chairman whose term of office is three years. In the last week of March 2024, Augustine Alegeh, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and one of the most eminent presidents of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in the last three decades, officially accepted the nomination to head the Appointments Committee.

The case is now before the courts, with Mr. Alegeh, as defendant, suing the Chairman and the panel of judges. The actual issue before the court is of great importance. According to a letter from a member of the panel, “the Chairman took exception to the Appointments Committee because his wife’s name was on the list, which we did not approve.”

The following week, the committee elected a new chairmanwhose first official act was to issue a decree dissolving and recreating the existing committees. The problem is that, according to its own statutes, the power to form committees lies not with the Chairman but with the body of Benchers as a whole. To avoid any misunderstanding, the body is formed for this purpose by a quorum of at least 50 of its members. Many members of the body rightly saw this claim of sole power by the current Chairman as a descent into a domination-free autocracy. The new Chairman’s decision to ignore their protests only reinforced this fear.

The matter is now before the court in a suit by Mr Alegeh against the Chairman and the Panel of Benchers as defendants. The actual issue before the court is of great importance. According to a letter from a member of the panel, “the Chairman took exception to the Appointments Committee because his wife’s name was on the list which we did not approve.” The member feared that the Chairman’s action in invoking non-existent powers to dissolve and reappoint the Appointments Committee “raises suspicions” that he was simply trying to get his wife appointed as a bencher during his term of office.

In this case, it is alleged that the Chairman of the Body of Benchers attempted to manipulate the governance of the body in general and the composition of the Appointments Committee in particular in order to secure for his wife, by any means necessary, the requisite membership of the body. This may make him a truly loving husband, but the body is no place for marital relations. The opposition within the body is not only against the blatant breach of rules by its Chairman, but even more fiercely against the claim that “highest distinction” in the legal profession can be achieved through pillow talk or marital intimacy between a man and a woman.

The logical fear is that if the qualification for membership of the body can be transferred in this manner, the eligibility for membership will surely become a sexually transmitted disease. This question of the extent to which the achievements of the legal profession in Nigeria can be reduced to a sexually transmitted disease is ultimately what the Federal Court is faced with in the case currently pending concerning the actions of the current Chairman of the Body of Judges. It is an important question and in the interest of the body, it deserves the utmost attention of all persons concerned with the institutions of law in Nigeria.

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, an attorney, teaches at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and can be reached at [email protected].