SAN writes NBA, seeks to restrain Olanipekun from vying for Body of Benchers chairmanship

Lucius Nwosu, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has asked the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to restrain Wole Olanipekun, former president of the NBA, from bidding for the chairmanship of the Body of Benchers (BOB).

In a letter dated February 17 and addressed to Olumide Akpata, NBA president, Nwosu accused Olanipekun of engaging in unprofessional conduct contrary to the provisions of section 3 of the Legal Practioners Act Cap L 11, which provides that a BOB member should be of the highest distinction in the legal profession.

Should Olanipekun insist on vying for the BOB chairmanship position, Nwosu is asking the NBA to withdraw his candidacy.

“It has come to my knowledge that Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN was one such member representing the Bar Association at the Body of Benchers. He has unfortunately, over the years, progressively carried on a practice which has finally culminated in his condemnation in unanimous decisions of the supreme court and final court of the land in the strongest of terms, such that he cannot possibly be said to have acquitted himself of that pre-condition set down by the enabling statute,” the letter reads.

“I am of the considered view that it will be in his interest and I dare say, the larger interest of the Nigeria Bar Association/legal profession, that he be advised to refrain from bidding for the chairmanship of the Body of Benchers failing which, the bar should politely withdraw his candidacy.”

He referred to a decision of the supreme court wherein Amina Augie, justice of the court, while delivering judgment in the case of “Biobarakuma Degi Eremienyo & Ors Vs. Peoples Democratic Party & Ors”, berated Olanipekun for seeking a review of the court’s judgement on the Bayelsa state governorship election.

Olanipekun and Afe Babalola, another senior advocate of Nigeria, who both represented David Lyon, a Bayelsa governorship candidate, and the All Progressives Congress (APC), were fined N30 million by the apex court over the application.

“It is similarly more significant that there is no parallel in recorded judicial history in this country where a senior lawyer is mulcted with humongous costs of N30,000,000 and ordered to be paid personally by himself,” Nwosu said.

“He has defiantly refused to pay the costs awarded by the supreme court as at my last inquiry, not that it would have made a difference if he had paid same.

“Mr. President (NBA president), the position is more complicated given the fact that the honourable chief justice of the federation and all the learned law lords of his condemning supreme court are statutory members of the Body of Benchers. Ditto all the heads of strategic courts in Nigeria.

“It will therefore be irreconcilable with decency that the person put forward by the Bar Association should sit as chairman of the highest policy body where ethics and regulation of the legal profession will be discussed and formulated, with these eminent jurists seated as plebians, at the chairman’s footstool.

“As though the un-edifying situation above is not enough, one of the responsibilities of the chairman of the Body of Benchers is to sign the call to bar certificates of new wigs and deliver the exhortations as to character, carriage and respect for the courts.

“There will certainly arise the ugly and irreconcilable situation where the bearers of those certificates will be citing the judicial precedent of the condemnation by the highest court of the very member of the bar who signed those certificates.

“Mr. President, I do not have anything to gain or lose personally by Chief Olanipekun SAN remaining in or becoming chairman of the Body of Benchers, but I would rather not be your goodself as president and alter ego of the Nigeria Bar Association when this tragic circumstance will be ascribed to your tenure. Hence this urgent note of caution.”