Why
should the EFCC chief call most lawyers rogues and vultures? The other question
is, why not? The role of lawyers in a democracy just came to the fore, and what
many are interested in are the insults rather than facts.
It all
began with the new NBA helmsman when he called for the stripping of EFCC
powers. He wants it to stop suing people. It should only investigate. The new
NBA chief, Abubakar Mahmud, knew he had rasped like a wasp, and somebody was
going to buzz back.
Magu
rolled down his tanks and he fired salvos through his media man. He said most
members of the bar are rogues and vultures. We were in the terrain of metaphor.
Lawyers fought back with professional hubris. No, they were not rogues and they
were not vultures. They are patriots and custodians of the law. They tell us
what the law says in order to attain a just and egalitarian society.
I am sure
they were laughing inside their kidneys when they said that, including the NBA
chief. Lawyers are important in every society, especially in a liberal and
democratic society.
But I am
with Magu on the vulture metaphor. Vultures sniff rottenness. They are
morticians of sorts. But the lawyers are also saviours and avenging angels.
They are doves now, vultures now. Peace and death are in the loins of the
lawyer.
That is
the problem with lawyers. They are on both sides to save us, a sort of
redemptive schizophrenia. The problem is not with lawyers, according to some
analysts. It is with the law. The law gives the interpreters too much room to
pursue justice and injustice simultaneously. That inspired the lines from
Arthur Baer: “It is impossible to tell where the law stops and justice begins.”
When
President Buhari addressed the NBA last year, he asked the law exponents to key
into the anti-corruption scheme. Clearly they are an asset to fight filth. But
the story gained traction because we all know that lawyers have fattened on
corruption. How can a dirty hand clean up the dinner fork?
One
example is that lawyers have stood between the EFCC and conviction of many
cases, especially high-profile cases. They adjourn and adjourn, and frustrate
the cases. By that they glamorise public robbery, and encourage the governors,
civil servants, ministers to come to their lairs, drink of their legal
shenanigans, be free and sin again.
Some of
the culprits are the senior lawyers, the Senior Advocates of Nigeria. They go
about charging billions to these ex-office holders who pay handily. So, the
lawyers think: you stole, and you want me to defend you. Well, shall I have a
piece of the action? Of course, the ex-office holder obliges and we witness a
long-winded merry-go-round in the courts.
Other
than that, they cling to technicalities. That is their way of frustrating the
courts and the search for justice in society. In its response, the EFCC chief
accused the new NBA man of serving his interest. Magu accused Mahmud of
defending former Delta State Governor James Ibori in a case that landed him
conviction in London. We must add though that even Ibori prosecutors are in
some boiling soup right now in London. I would like to know what Mahmud wants
to say for himself on that score.
More
ashamedly, I have seen in the past few years SANs defend a client on a certain
premise and oppose another client on the antipodal premise, and win both cases.
Is that not intellectual fraud? Is it not the way of the vulture?
I must
note though that Magu’s EFCC has had to contend with the charge of impunity,
but who advised the EFCC and who defended the EFCC? Of course, the lawyers. So,
we cannot pretend that the lawyers -not all, but many prominent ones – are in
the kitchen sink of corruption.
In any
society, nothing works without the law. You set up a social club, or a software
firm, or political party, with two important staff-members: a lawyer and
accountant. You steal with the accountant, and the lawyer waits to defend. The
concept of the vulture comes out in times of recession. Companies go under and
they become cadavers. Lawyers become undertakers, and they write the legal
documents to certify their deaths. In the last recession, especially in Obama’s
early presidency, lawyers rallied in major US cities presiding over the
graveyards of firms. They flourished on the corpses. The tragedy is that we
need them.
Nigeria
had so many stories of corruption under Jonathan. Who are the defendants
running to for defence? The EFCC has its weaknesses in the fight for financial
sanity. It has looked for the law to keep some people in detention without due
process, including former NSA Dasuki.
It had to
find the law – and lawyers – to justify its position. It reminds me of a
conversation I had with the late Gani Fawehinmi. He said if there was a case
between a rich man and poor man, “I will find the law for the poor man.” Our
SANs have been doing the opposite. In his poem, The Vultures, David Diop wrote:
“You knew all the books you did not know love.”
Corruption
is rottenness, and anyone that allows it to fester is a vulture. Our SANs have
not excelled for integrity. In fact, to be a SAN you don’t have to be a man or
woman of integrity.
You just
have to excel in the technical virtues of the law. You don’t have to be a good
man, you just have to be a good lawyer. After all, are we not witnesses to the
case of two SANs who allegedly bribed somebody and about a dozen of them (SANs)
backed them like the solidarity of Baal! It echoes the words of Will Rogers:
“Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.”
It’s this
frustration that drove Shakespeare to cry: “The first thing we do, let’s kill
the lawyers.” I won’t go that far. I want our lawyers to ape the Progressive
Era in the U.S., when men like Theodore Roosevelt turned law into a platform
for reform. We have a few in Nigeria who have taken the law as instruments of
justice. I bow to them. But for others, I shed my tears.
In his
novel, The Great expectation, Charles Dickens paints the picture of London’s
best-known lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, who is cynical, wealthy, contemptuous,
manipulative but inevitably iconic and successful. Mr. Jaggers is about the
most colourful brute fiction has painted for the law profession.
I accept
with thanks Mahmud’s suggestion that EFCC should not prosecute and investigate.
That is
scratching the surface, though. It works in England with the Serious Fraud
Office. It is the battle between rational choice and institutionalism at play.
When we have the right values, you don’t need to bicker over conflict of
interest because the larger morality of the society will work the law to check
excesses. In the United States, the attorney-general can prosecute anybody,
including the president. Hence Janet Reno appointed Kenneth Starr, a
Republican, to investigate Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes. In Nigeria, the
EFCC prosecutorial powers can be checked by the attorney-general. Aondoakaa did
it to Ribadu under Yar-Adua.
Mahmud
put the cart before the horse. It’s like the call for a distinction between
attorney-general of the federation and attorney-general of the government. It’s
a meretricious colouring. If we have the right values, no one can abuse his
powers without drawing
umbrage
and penalty.
What we
need is a good society. Law and lawyers will have no choice but fall in line.
