Law News
‘How we’re ridding the bar of fake lawyers’

Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president Augustine Alegeh (SAN) speaks on how the Stamp and Seal policy is ridding the profession of fake lawyers and other sundry issues in this interview with ADEBISI ONANUGA

Was the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) right to have gone ahead with the Kogi election?

INEC is an umpire. INEC is not a party at the election. INEC cannot go to court. Even, the Attorney-General of the Federation is  also not a party in the election. So only the parties can go to court and parties can only go to court when there is a decision taken.

Some suggested that the AGF should have approached the Supreme Court.

What would be the locus in the matter? It is an election matter with vested parties. He  is not a party at the elections. What is his cause of an action? He cannot go to the Supreme Court to determine academic issues nor go to the Supreme Court to determine something that is real. It is when those with vested interests go to court, that the court can in its own wisdom, invite the AGF as an amicus curiae (friend of the court) to come and offer suggestions.

So, only the Supreme Court can resolve it?

That is why I don’t have an opinion. If I have an opinion, I would be taking an opinion against the stand of one of my members. If there is a constitutional provision, and we are interpreting that, I don’t care where you  stand. I would say the constitution says this and it should be followed. But now, there is no provision for me to anchor upon and there is no decision that everybody will be happy about.

There is this school of thought that Audu’s running mate should step in and conclude the process.

For me, it is a very simple way out of the problem. But let me play the devil’s advocate. If Audu contested alone, it would be a void ticket. For the deputy governor to go alone without a running mate is not allowed. Each candidate must have a running mate. If you play the devil’s advocate, you would see that there is no perfect argument. There is no perfect situation. They can say okay, let the man name a running mate, the call for nomination has expired. There are layers of challenges and as the law did not provide for it, we all have to be careful.

What role does doctrine of necessity play in this kind of situation?

The doctrine of necessity does not operate in a vacuum. It operates in law. It operates on certain parameters. So, you must look at it holistically.

A committee was inaugurated recently by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to review all anti-human rights laws. Given your experience, what areas of the law would you want that committee to look at?

Firstly, I want to say that we must understand the functions of the NHRC. The NHRC is set up to protect human rights and ensure that all our laws create an environment that respects human rights. So when a commission now creates a committee to look at human rights legislations, then you start asking what is its own function as a commission because that committee is being given a principal function of the commission.

They are doing a great job but I will appeal to them to be proactive. It is easier to ensure that those flaws don’t get into our laws than to wait till the end of the day and try and get the laws back to the assembly to amend.

Your administration set up an investigative committee to look at human rights abuses in the Northeast. Why?

No, we are not going to investigate human rights abuses. The situation that has occurred is that there have been talks from Amnesty about heavy presence of abuses, that our troops in trying to quell the Boko Haram insurgency, are committing human rights violations. Amnesty claimed to have investigated, Human Rights Commission claimed to have investigated. Our duty is to sensitise the military. We are not having an investigative foray into Maiduguri. We are going to have a human rights workshop with the military where the former Attorney-General of the Federation and the former Minister of  Defence will present a paper that will tell the military and highlight what they have to do.  We have members in all these places, Damaturu, Biu, Gombe, Maiduguri, Mukari, Mubi. Our immediate past chairman of  Mubi branch is today a member of the assembly. They live there, they pay their practising  fees there. It is these practising fees that we used in building the NBA secretariat.

Why is NBA getting involved?

Everybody has a role to play in this. But we feel that as a group in NBA, we should do something positive to change the situation. Everybody is complaining but on our part, we cannot accuse the military of committing human rights atrocities and we can also not exonerate them because we have not done any investigation. All we are saying is that we have heard all these hues and cries of the military saying we don’t have atrocities and the civil societies saying that there are  atrocities. We don’t want to choose sides. But what we think we know is that there are rules of war that have long been established. There are rules of engagement that have long been established and cystalised. We owe it a duty to our country to go and remind all our soldiers, those who do not know to educate them; those who were taught and forgotten to remind them and we believe that it would have a positive impact.

What are your expecations ot the new federal cabinet?

First, I want to commend the President for appointing not less than 10 of our members as ministers. Second, for our members, we have assured them of our support. We have also drawn their attention to the fact that they are ambassadors of the bar and that whatever they do while they are there would have an impact on the bar positively or negatively; that they should, at all times be above board. That they should be performing ministers at all times and be the top ten at all times. For the AGF Abubakar Mallami (SAN), he is somebody who I know closely and is passionate about the rule of law,  passionate about democratic values and passionate about our judiciary and how to improve upon it. So, when the names of ministers were announced, we were not surprised that he became the AGF. But the most important thing for us to do at this time is to fix our legal system and one of the best ways to fix our legal system is by taking certain legislative interventions. If by the grace of God, these interventions are taken by the new administration, they would make other things fall into place, and then we would have a very good justice delivery system. I congratulate Alhaji Mallami. I wish him the best and I have no doubt in my mind that with his commitment, he will succeed in the office to which he has been appointed.

How far have you gone with the NBA Pro-Bono project?

Not as fast as we should be going. We have interviewed some people because we need a client head and an account head to head our pro-bono project and be a Director of our Pro-Bono Services who would have his own office outside our NBA secretariat. We have interviewed but we have not found somebody suitable. So secretariat is still managing it. The head hunting is still on.

How has the Stamp and Seal policy worked out?

It has been monumental and the fake lawyers are fighting back. All the fight you see in the press against the seal is from fake lawyers on a daily basis.  For a number of applications received by the secretariat and processed daily, there has been cases of ‘names not found in register’, and any application that comes to us is signed by the branch chairman. I can assure you, as at September when I asked, we have found over 1,000 fake lawyers practicing in Nigeria.

What has been done to them? Is there any follow up?

There is none for several reasons. Firstly, there is no time bound to prosecute a criminal matter. So, for us, prosecution is not key. We are implementing a policy that was introduced in 2007 and we are getting resistance. So, let us settle ourselves in-house first. When a house is in disarray, you can’t go out to fight. You have to put your house in order first. Now, the Supreme Court has affirmed it.

To what extent have you sensitised  judges to accept  this policy?

The NBA Stamp and Seal Policy was introduced by Bayo Ojo, a former AGF in 2007. So everybody has known about it. The only thing that was missing  was the provision that says “a Stamp and Seal approved by NBA”. NBA has not come out to say this is what we have approved. So, when I came on board, I said we must approve it and we issue a practice license with it.  The one that we have is as good as Naira note. That is their problem as they cannot fake it. It was done in France by people that make mint. Once you put it on your paper, you cannot remove it and when you try to remove it, it would tear your paper.

Now people go to embassy and they asked them, do you have a practice licence, they say yes and they give them visa. Some others go, including senior lawyers and they asked them, did you bring your practice licence? and they would say they didn’t.  Then they would tell them when you bring it, we would consider your visa application. Then they would walk up to the secretariat. This is the first time in the history of the bar that people are paying practice fee in October and November because the courts are now implementing the Stamp and Seal policy.

The Supreme Court has made it easy for us and I think we should thank the Supreme Court, not because it said the policy should be enforced but because of the way the judgment came about.

The judgment has come out in a way that no litigant will be punished. As long as you are working with a lawyer, you will not suffer disability. If I take objection that a lawyer did not put stamp, the court would ask him, where is your stamp? If he has it there, he can then apply it. If he doesn’t have, the court can adjourn to enable the lawyer put his stamp on the document. So it makes us happy.

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