Lagos chief judge Kazeem Alogba has expressed concern over the conduct of lawyers, excoriating them for being bad examples.
Mr Alogba expressed his concerns on Tuesday night while addressing lawyers, judges, and other legal practitioners at a party held at the Ikeja High Court complex as part of activities to mark the commencement of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law (NBA-SPIDEL) annual conference.
“The conduct of lawyers nowadays is worrisome,” Mr Alogba said. ”The situation becomes more worrisome when it is considered that some of them have children who have equally become lawyers and see what they are doing.”
Decrying the falling standard of the justice system, he emphasised the need to uphold the legal profession’s ethics.
”We need to bring the shine back to the legal profession,” he said.
Mr Alogba recalled the 2020 #EndSARS nationwide protests against police brutality. He said the perpetrators of the incidents might have burnt down the courts due to the failed justice system in Nigeria.
“If they chose not to go and burn down those places, not to go and burn down government houses, but to burn down courts, burn down police stations and burn down the correctional centres, then they are complaining about the administration of justice,” stated the chief judge. “What we should ask ourselves is, are they justified? Do they have any justification for doing so? I think so.”
Mr Alogba added, “The justification might be right or wrong, but we still complain today about the administration of justice in the country.”
Speaking, NBA president Yakubu Maikyau said the bar and the bench had a symbiotic relationship, adding that they were agents of the same organism performing justice either on the bench or on the bar.
It is justice that we are accountable to. Our existence as a people squarely depends on justice,” he said.
Mr Maikyau commended the chief judge for rekindling the spirit that binds the bench and the bar together towards providing justice for the people.