The Modern Day Nigerian Lawyer: A Reflection Of The Nigerian Society

Posted on 26. Mar, 2010 by admin in Frontpage

The pres­tige con­comi­tant with the legal pro­fes­sion is no doubt one of
the under­ly­ing and sub­con­scious fac­tors that are respon­si­ble for the
zeal of lawyers in Nige­ria today. This, of course, comes sec­ond to the
need to be a part of the con­stant strug­gle of ensur­ing jus­tice pre­vails
in the soci­ety. Fur­ther­more, it would be ide­al­is­tic not to include the
fact that the legal pro­fes­sion is often seen to be very lucra­tive in
Nige­ria, whether or not such lucra­tive­ness is based on strong chain link
that is nepo­tism. It is for these rea­sons that old wigs at the bar
com­plain about the death of con­ven­tions in the legal sphere. They often
lament that the mod­ern day lawyer (usu­ally the young ones) have no idea
how things were in the glo­ri­ous past. While this may strike a nos­tal­gic
chord in the hearts of the seniors of the bar, it is fun­da­men­tal to
acknowl­edge the state of flux every­thing goes through at one point or
another.

Accord­ing to Richard Susskind, an Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Law at
Gre­sham Col­lege in Amer­ica, in an extract from his forth­com­ing book, The
End of Lawyers? Rethink­ing the Nature of Legal Ser­vices:

“…I do not believe lawyers are self-evidently enti­tled to
profit from the law. As I have said before, the law is not there to
pro­vide a liveli­hood for lawyers any more than ill-health exists to
offer a liv­ing for doc­tors. Suc­cess­ful legal busi­ness may be a
bi-product of law in soci­ety, but it is not the pur­pose of law. And,
just as numer­ous other indus­tries and sec­tors are hav­ing to adapt to
broader change, so too should lawyers.”

There­fore, the struc­tural eco­nomic and polit­i­cal changes Nige­ria
under­goes as a fledg­ing nation in both aspects inex­orably seeps into the
busi­ness world alter­ing the form of things. This can be said to also
extend into the nation’s legal sec­tor. These changes mark the gen­e­sis of
new leg­is­la­tions, new case laws as well as the turn­ing over of cer­tain
estab­lished judi­cial deci­sions and ulti­mately the prac­tice of law.

It is regret­table that Nige­ria is can­not be said to be a
litigation-conscious and the root of this apa­thy is heav­ily dis­persed in
the work­ings of soci­ety. There is the gen­eral assump­tion that the
com­mon man has no voice in soci­ety against and even if he had one, the
gov­ern­ment turns a deaf ear to his pleas. This lack of pos­i­tive action
on the part of the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment has over time impliedly engraved
into the mind of the peo­ple that they live in a soci­ety where noth­ing
works. A short­com­ing such as this is evi­dent in the fact the peo­ple are
not con­scious of their rights either due to illit­er­acy, igno­rance or
plain indif­fer­ence. In turn, the mod­ern Niger­ian lawyer does not have
the same avenue to solicit for cases on the streets based on, say, an
acci­dent that has just hap­pened before his very eyes as is often done in
the United States of Amer­ica. Hav­ing said this, an advanced coun­try
like Amer­ica has imbibed into its var­i­ous pro­vi­sions the impor­tance of
the aver­age Amer­i­can being aware of his rights. This aver­age Amer­i­can is
aware of con­fi­dently plead­ing the First, Fifth and Sixth Amend­ments and
other such legal rights thus giv­ing an aver­age Amer­i­can lawyer a lot to
work with. Whereas, Niger­ian cit­i­zens live in fear of being abused if
he/she attempts to stand up and speak up against what is wrong; there is
no guar­an­tee of a secured life as secu­rity insti­tu­tions such as the
Niger­ian Police have lit­tle or no regard for the safety of those it
swore to pro­tect. The bot­tom line is a harsh and nec­es­sary truth — the
sys­tem does not work. And when this is so what hope is there for the
mod­ern lawyer?

Well, as the prim­i­tive instinct of man dic­tates, two options are
avail­able: Flight or Fight. The lawyer may sag his shoul­ders and thrown
in the towel (flight) or actu­ally go back to the books and inno­vate
ideas that will enable the sys­tem work for him (fight). While the for­mer
sce­nario occurs, the lat­ter is gain­ing faster grounds in the Niger­ian
legal sys­tem. Sub­se­quently, stake­hold­ers in dif­fer­ent sec­tors have
become more aggres­sive in their pur­suit of jus­tice espe­cially when large
sums of money are involved either as dam­ages, costs or debt recov­ery
processes. This aggres­sive­ness more often than not finds its way to the
courts and in the same vein, the exe­cu­tion of cases is mostly dri­ven by
the desired out­come of the legal practitioner’s clien­tele. Young lawyers
have since adopted a grasp-all atti­tude for short-term gains that serve
to sat­isfy their imme­di­ate needs. In fact, one might argue the ini­tial
unadul­ter­ated joy of the pro­fes­sion has long dis­ap­peared under the
money-driven pur­suits. Answer me this, would this sit­u­a­tion be the case
if the cur­rent state of the soci­ety does not shame­fully bear the ban­ner
of cor­rup­tion and poverty? I think not. Worse still, the law is
con­stantly manip­u­lated and twisted to fit into the cast of cor­rupt elite
and lead­ers

When all is said and done, the changes we want to see in the legal
sec­tor is sub­ject to the changes that occur in soci­ety. A process of
cog­ni­tive restruc­tur­ing whereby the negative-inclined think­ing of both
the man and lawyer is altered can be rec­om­mended. The impli­ca­tion of
such a step is that all gov­ern­men­tal arms will have to gain the trust of
its cit­i­zens by tak­ing appro­pri­ate steps to rec­tify wrongs as well as
ensur­ing the secu­rity of those who voice these wrongs. Per­haps the
mod­ern day Niger­ian lawyer should be more proac­tive in ensur­ing that he
does not become redun­dant by virtue of the fact that a sig­nif­i­cant
per­cent­age of the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion dwell in dark­ness as regards the
rights. Once such aware­ness is prop­a­gated, in the long run, Niger­ian
courts of laws might develop to han­dle polemic suits such as neg­li­gent
or inten­tional inflic­tion of emo­tional dis­tress. Hope still lingers in
the hori­zon.
 

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