'Femi's Agoniste' By Adesina Ogunlana

When the list came out, I knew his name would not be there. Boy was I right! And come December 16 2008, when the new titled men take office, he will not be there. So many people have been lamenting that his name was not on the list. As if it is anything new. In 2007, he was not found eligible in the first instance and so was not even called for the “Qualification Interview.”

I really wonder why people are attacking the conferrers of these titles on legal practitioners. Such critics are making it out as if it is our man’s right to be awarded the title. Of course the title in question is not the birth-right of anybody, er well, everybody.

For some people it is their birth-right or nearly so. If you doubt me, look in the direction of one well known Chambers in Ibadan which claims that God is with them. Of course that Chambers is the leading bakery of the title in question in Nigeria. With God and man helping them, the God-with-me Chambers has incubated many title owners in the last fifteen years.

Frankly, I wonder at those criticising the side-lining of our man-femora. First of all our man has not purged himself, sufficiently of his Ife-grown ideology. He is always in court for the wrong set of people. People like Ken Saro Wiwa and lately Okah, the super-militant. Even though he is now a rich man, he is yet a rebel, which even makes him worse. Now why should any sensible group of judges elevate a rebel onto the throne? We all know what happened when Moses a slave by birth was made a prince by adoption.

Secondly, how would the infallible scriptures which says that a “prophet has no honour in his town” be proved right if our man should also land himself another award, this time a local one. About a month ago, in Diegoland, our man was given an international award. The ceremony of the conferment did not take place in Okija Shrine, rather it happened in the “very before” of the whole world. But back home, the story was different, rightly so, for the scriptures, as his pastor-wife will confirm, cannot be broken.

Aside the issue of the scriptures, the granters of the title in their wisdom knew that too much of a good thing for an individual often proves injurious.
They must have feared that if our man should take a coveted local title, so soon after an international one, he may become unbearably swollen headed on account of his on-shore and off-shore achievements.

As things stand now, the sting of rejection at the local level will moderate the exhilaration of the conferment of the more universal accolade.
Something came to my mind, just now as, I was thinking of ending this piece. There were about forty either people apart from our man, who did not receive the Privilege Committee’s nod to gain elevation but nobody is talking about the rejection of these other people, almost as if it was only our man who was denied the title. Now that in itself is a distinction and recognition. A recognition you don’t apply for, even push for. A true distinction.

'Xavier's Tears' By Adesina Ogunlana

Xavier is my friend. My learned friend. The other day we were in court together. Before a High Court Judge. On the same side of a criminal matter we were, Xavier my friend.

That day in court, as had become ‘traditional’ the matter could not go on. It is one of those cases where mishaps collapse on bad-luck, before colliding with accidents and in an effort to be extricated from the web of complication bump into a bog, only to sink into a quagmire! In such cases, you have plenty of motion but no movement. You are almost in the same shoes of the proverbial man toiling with a basket to empty the ocean! All the stake-holders in such cases are caught in a blind and sometimes it takes miracles for them to get out of the woods.

The day in question, it soon became pretty clear that a Prince of Persia was still active in the case. Of course adjournment of the case was inevitable. The culprit, this time around, responsible for the delay was the prosecution. So it made all the necessary “supplications” to the court to grant an adjournment. The honourable court did not appear too impressed but had no choice than to grant the wish of the prosecution. In the interest of justice.

In the interest of justice the court could not just bless the prosecution’s desire without hearing from the defence. The Chief Priest started from me. “Yes Mr. Ogunlana?” I said one or two words – and sat down. Then the Chief Priest asked from my friend. My friend Xavier. Then Xavier did the unexpected. He went lachrymose. Come and see tears. Xavier wept. Wept, not from the eyes. His words were his tears, words of lamentation.

According to my friend – he had had enough of the jinxed case, where no progress had been made for about three years. However, it was not the stand still that made my friend cry out. It was the fact that “My lord, since 2004, I have been doing this case without getting a kobo. My client is poor. My lord if by the next adjourned date progress can’t still be made, I’ll respectfully apply to the honourable court to be allowed from further participation.”

If my friend Xavier had hoped for a judicial assent to his “Escape Route” proposition, he was mistaken. Sorely. The Judge said Xavier would have to see the case to the very end.
Clearly Xavier was in a fix. He earned everybody’s sympathy, except that of a particular gecko. This is what the gecko later told me after the case was adjourned.
“I wonder why you people were sympathising with a man who has decided to conduct his business contrary to the commands of the Bible. Or have you not heard of the Scripture that says “The labourer is worthy of his wages.” That scripture, if I need to tell you is the totality of the law and jurisprudence of contract. According to the Bible, it is the normal, proper, just thing for a labourer to collect, receive something in exchange for his labour, sweat. That something is called Wages. From whom does the labourer receive the Wages? From God? No. From his friends or relatives? No. From passers by? No. From good-Samaritans? No. From Caesar? No.
The labourer can only receive his wages from him that he gave his labour to. Elementary, a point you say? Too elementary if you ask me. A labourer, mind you, is not a slave. Also note that the Bible does not say a slave is entitled to wages. It is true that a slave labours, but he is not a labourer labouring for his own good. His exertions, his sweat, his productivity is for the benefit and progress of another man. While a labourer is a passenger in the vehicle of achievement, a slave is just the fuel and the wheel of the vehicle.

I wonder why you people were feeling sorry for Xavier. I can feel sorry for a slave – his status is compelled on him. But when a labourer freely converts himself into a slave, why shed tears for him. I looked at Xavier in the courtroom – he was thin and looked harried – the perfect picture of a slave. I looked at his client turned slave owner or master and he too looked his part - robust, even plump, soft, rounded and relaxed. And this is the man Xavier said was too poor to even pay a farthing for the services of a good, competent and dedicated lawyer! Eh, stop feeling sorry for Xavier. Stop feeling sorry for your self too. Just go and get smart. Do you want to stop being a slave – lawyer? Then, go and get a copy of a book called “UNDERSTANDING THE SECRETS OF SUCCESSFUL LAWYERS”The author’s name is “The First Gecko.” Lawyer slaves, go to the Gecko, and learn wisdom, jo!

"The Bad Old Days' By Adesina Ogunlana

Everybody or almost everybody has been told that I have a case to answer before the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee at Abuja on Monday the 10th November 2008. The Announcer was none other than the 'trial court' itself, and for maximum coverage used a popular national daily newspaper to advertise the “coming event.”

The case has been on, at least on the cause list for five years. Five years of motion without movement, burning without heat.
Surprisingly there are many lawyers who do not know why I am on the cross of prosecution or that I am still standing trial before the LPDC. Such folks, in season, out of season, walk up to me, to enquire why the “Abuja Summons?”

This piece is actually meant for the innocent and the young at the bar and, well, the old but the forgetful. Let no one mislead you about my case with the LPDC. I have defrauded no one, I have cheated nobody. I have not committed any contempt. And no judge can say of me as an advocate appearing before him that I deserve prosecution. I am not insolent.
I am before the “Sanhedrin” for the crime, of speaking out. Speaking out, loudly, boldly, directly and truthfully. I am on the cross for having the guts to tell the truth, no matter whose ox is gored.

The Squib, I tell you and you are hearing from the horse's mouth, was born as a reaction. A reaction to rot, a reaction wrought from the fire of indignation at the abuse and misuse of office at all layers of authority in the Judiciary, as well as in the bar.

I tell you in 1996 when I became a legal practitioner, the Lagos State Judiciary was in no healthy shape. Bribery, even extortion of money was the order of the day. There were so many dirty judges and magistrates then, whited sepulchers. Lords they were, but not lords of Justice, or masters of Equity, captains of Fairness or paragons of Accountability. Rather they were judicial king-pins of mamonised proceedings and cash and carry rulings. As for the bar, it was reeking most foully of sharp practices. The bar was very scarce in the number of decent and noble practitioners. And infact, many older, senior lawyers employed crooked means to win their cases and served as no good examples to the younger ones. Such lawyers were and some still are Senior Advocates of Prepaid Judgements (SAPJ).

Things were so bad back then, that litigants preferred the services of lawyers who knew judges to the services of lawyers who merely knew the law! That, my dear, was the situation. It was a stinking corruption that gripped Lagos State Judiciary with so much swaggering arrogance and insolence.
Everybody - litigants, lawyers and the very few upright judges knew how terrible and horrible the situation was but nobody cared enough to do anything much about it.

Where was the Bar, the association of lawyers, all that while? The bar, I tell you, was on a voyage of self exile and cowardly, dumb retreat. No victim of oppression and injustice in the Judicial System could run to the bar and get succour. It was a Bar, self compromised either morally or intellectually. It was a bar which had forgotten her true mission of societal guidance and leadership.

Then thunder, in the form of the Squib, struck and the rest, as you are witnessing today, is history.
Permit to say this, the Squib is a positive factor in the little transformation of the Lagos State Judiciary from being blantantly corrupt and inefficient as it was in the 1990s and early 2000s to its present state. For those who may not really appreciate how terrible the misconduct of judges, magistrates and lawyers was in the 90s and the early 2000s in the Lagos State Judiciary, I tell you this true live story.

Four days after moving and losing a motion ex parte, a particular counsel, Barrister X, who himself is now a judge, came back to the court, very much prepared to move his motion on notice.
As he cleared his throat to do just that, Barrister X was shocked to hear the presiding judge say to the counsel on the opposing side.
“Are you aware that I have granted an injunction in this case?”
Barrister X and his junior could not believe their ears, however they managed to hide their shock and kept a discreet silence. It was later that they learnt the truth - their clients without notice to counsel, had gone to “see” the judge! Compromised, the judge had rewritten his records and ruling!

Unbelievable, you say? But that's the gospel truth. It was because of situations like this that the Squib was born. So that we can have the “good new days.”

'The Fitness Question' By Adesina Ogunlana

Are you fit? Yes you, you of course, are you fit? I mean you and nobody else -are you fit? My friend, why are you looking over your shoulders? There's nobody behind you, so the question is still for you and about you - are you fit?

Am I referring to you? Why ask such an obvious question? My question is strictly, only, wholly and exclusively for you, so I ask again “are you fit?” and again-“are you fit?”

There you go again looking askance, as if I have put my words in a luggage of Greek and loaded them onto a train of Latin, wheeling on, on the rails of Aramaic. What is there too difficult to comprehend about my question?
Are you fit?
I forbid you to speak out the thoughts pulsating in your mind. Let me tell you what you wanted to ask me; the question you are dying to ask me is “are you fit yourself?”
You will know as I do, that your query is ad hominen and begs the question. Of course begging a question does not answer or remove it; so my question remains, Are you fit?
Oh, you are now prepared to give me an answer. Please tell the truth about your health, don't yaraduanise it -Tell it as it is really.
My pal did I hear you say, you are fit? Fit as fiddle? But, are you really fit? Why is your tummy and mid section a perfect copy of the shape of the AVOCADO pear?
Why do you always yawn so loudly and repeatedly as early as 9.00am in the morning, even after 8 hours night sleep?
Are you fit? Why do you suffer those sharp headaches and pains in your chest and feet? If you are fit, how come it takes you fifteen minutes to climb the stairs to the top of a three storey building and with your mouth agape? Say brother, are you fit? What about your waist that is almost in a perpetual state of disequilibrium?

And why are you always catching the flu? Your eyes tend towards the blood-shot and it is often a wrestle to get your (brown, sometimes, black) stuff out in the small room?
The other day, you attempted ten press-ups but when you got to just number three, you simply collapsed on your chest; Are you fit?
When last did you walk briskly or run a kilometer? So why say you are fit? It is now an ordeal for you to touch the ground with the tips of your fingers, even with bent knees?
How dare you say you are fit? How dare you? Even in indoor games? Are you as fit as you like to make people believe?
Can you do the marathon indoors? Are you not a flying whammer banger who gets beat less than three minutes after the commencement of intimate 'hostilities?'
And you Madam Fit, how come you are now a resident and stationary supervisor of the execution of house-hold chores? Sweeping, dusting, washing, cooking, e.t.c is not your look-out again, save dishing out intermittent orders to your kids and domestics alike? Are you sure you are fit?
Fit people burst with energy and are very active and no spirit of sloth can affix their bums to any immobile seat of inertia.
Are you fit? Let me ask again-are you fit? Yet you need to be fit. In fact you must be fit to carry out your serious tasks as a solicitor and barrister of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
As you well know, getting good briefs is challenging, executing them, tasking and even getting your fees, tough. So, Mr. Lawyer and Madam Barrister, we need all the energy we can get. We can't afford to be weak, wasting and worsted by poor health, otherwise we won't discharge our responsibilities adequately.

By the way do you know that the NBA Ikeja branch has started a weekly Wellness and Keep Fit Programme, between 7.00am 10.00am every Saturday, save Environmental Sanitation days. The venue is the Vining Memorial Church Cathedral Playing Field.

Two days we were there. Three Saturdays ago, we were there also. It was big fun sweating it out. Won't you like to come too?
Don't tell me you are fit and there is therefore no need for you to participate. If you are indeed fit, the Tigers programme will only make you fitter. And if you are like, like, well don't let us mention his name, you need it more than ever.
Next Saturday (15th November 2008) is the next occasion for the special Tigers Programme.

Please try and be there!

'Tigers Forever' By Adesina Ogunlana

There we were, a company of Tigers and some other learned members of the species homo sapiens seated in the cool, cosy 'upper room' chambers of the JADE GARDEN, a chinese restaurant, perched on the upper snout of the Isaac John Street, G.R.A Ikeja that Thursday evening of 23rd October 2008, It was a dinner, alright, in honour of certain big guns of the most famous and most active of the (perennially?) 88 off-springs of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).
The renowned offspring is known as the Ikeja branch of the NBA. She however is more popularly and I should like to think, more poignantly known as the 'Tiger Bar'.
This appellation or do we say cognomen is not agreeable to some people. One of them is Mr. Tunji Ayanlaja S.A.N of the “Work Hard, Play Hard” philosophy, who is also famous for his “apoti iwe” or lectern which accompanies him to court every-time and which in itself by sheer feat of elegant carpentry, distinguishes him, even from many other silks.
The learned silk, whom I was told on very good authority is from the Athenian side of the of the old Western Region of Nigeria finds the Tiger appellation very distasteful. Why ever should any group of lawyers rejoice in an appellation which as it were, suggests savagery and perhaps philistinism? According to Mr. Ayanlaja, he once enquired from an un-named person why “they call Ikeja bar the Tiger Bar?” The answer the silk received was “it is because they have one buka at the Ikeja High Court where they eat amala and abodi (innards)”.
I find the answer very interesting I really want to know what the issue here is.
(i) Is the problem with dining at all in the premises of the High Court?
(ii) Or, is it with the very nature of the meals involved amala and abodi (if they were let's say, some exotic European or Continental mish-mash, coupled with some caviars all washed down with vintage wines, would it be okay?)
(iii) Or is it with the architectural aesthetics of the eatery - perharps ramshackle, dirty and “mushin-eous?
(iv) Or is it with any perceived ferocity and velocity of the consumption of the amala and abodi all swimming in a thick sea of 'abula' perharps?
In concluding his remarks, the respected silk advised that the best branch of the NBA should change her alias from Tiger Bar to the “Honourable Bar.” In such a gathering, especially where your civility and cultural sophistication and correctness is already held in suspicion, you do nothing but nod in false-concurrence and clap politely. And that was what all the Tigers present did.
But the we knew what all Tigers know, and will always know, our name, nay our praise name is not only honourable but it is honour in itself, and as such will suffer no change.
May be if our father at law had cared to ask we, true born tigers why we are so branded, baba would not have been regaled with funny “amala and abodi” tales of denigration.
Sir, a tiger is an active, bold, strong and intrepid prince of his environment. A tiger is dominant and not dominated. A tiger is fierce and terrible in battle. As the Yoruba's testify, he is
“Ogidan olola iju (the circumciser of the jungle)
A komonila lai labe” (who plies his trade needing no blade)
There is no oppressing the Tiger. And lest we forget, the Tiger is a creature of grace, of beauty and extremely caring of her own.
Yet, the Tiger is not perfect. But then who, except the PERMANENT MYSTERY, is? We have our rough edges, our inadequacies and failings but who of our siblings can compare with our forthrightness, the largeness of our heart, our pathological demand and quest for justice and progress in the legal profession and Nigeria, our ability to have the courage of our convictions and tell the truth to power?
I concede, Tigers can do with a bit of more refinements, but by Jove, it will never be at the expense of robust and vigorous struggle to make the legal profession and the Nigerian nation a better place. And, will someone please mark my words, achieving such lofty heights are hardly made by effete, polite men of culture, full of social graces but dead in social conscience.
Maybe when our new, ultra-modern branch-secretariat, the F.R.A Williams Bar Centre gets built, a better view of us (Ikeja Tigers) will be perceived in the quarters of the sophisticates. That secretariat will cost us not a few million nairas and I as the Tiger in charge of Tigers welfare, look respectfully and hopefully in the direction of Daddy Ayanlaja for some munificence towards our project.Sir, my request, is not a roar of command, but a purr of suasion. Tigers salute you!

'I Still Can't Understand' By Adesina Ogunlana

I still can’t understand. Can’t understand why, there are only about 30 sheriffs to service the Lagos State Judiciary; the LSJ you may like to know has numerous customary courts, 105 magistrate courts and no less than 50 High Courts. These sheriffs, far from being super-men, simply cannot cope with the huge work load of their office. You may also like to know that in every working day, no less than 200 fresh cases (civil and criminal) are filed. So the only logical thing to do is employing more sheriffs. But the authorities have not done that. For obvious reason. Obvious reason that there is no money.

Oh yes I can’t understand. Can’t understand why the Probate Section of the Lagos State High Court remains a long room of discomfort and discontent. Every thing or at least almost everything smells of dreariness there. Hardly does anything function in the place. Forms takes ages to be seen and procured. The necessary advertisement gets going at the pace of a constipatated snail. As for the actual processing of the application, the applicant or and his counsel will scale through a decathlon, then moan and groan through a marathon and then be made to crave through a stretch of a thicket of thorns before they can think of success. Why is this so? The place is simply under-funded –no computers, no photocopiers, many times no files, papers, pins and countless times the needed officers are “not on seat”. I am a living witness to this amazing Probate Section. I started the process of a letter of administration Jan 2007 but got the L.A only September 2008 (a whopping 19 months!)

Why is this so? The answer is obvious – there is no money for the Lagos Judiciary to do the needful. Let us leave the Probate Registry and go to the Records Section. And go to the Archives Section. And go to the Open Registry. And go to each of the courts. What do you see in all these places? Poverty induced inefficiency. Things simply don’t work well. The workers are not well paid and they don’t have enough equipment and materials to work well. For example in the Ikeja High Court Library, there is no photocopy service.

When you ask the authorities, and I have been asking the authorities since 2001, the standard, unchanging, unrepentant, boring and annoying answer is “there is no money.”
Yes, this is exactly what I cannot understand. How can the Lagos State Judiciary and Lagos State Government in all honesty claim that they have no funds to pay their non-judicial officers well and provide adequately for their offices?

How can the authorities make this monstrous claim, when only about three weeks ago, brand, new cars (reports have it that they number no less than twenty, each costing no less than five-million naira each) were “dashed” out to retired Judges!

Everybody knows that a retired staff is out of service. Ordinarily and reasonably such a staff no matter how highly placed should not gain precedence in terms of welfare over serving officers.
Yet the Lagos Judiciary has doled out, maybe one hundred million naira, or even more to a few out-of-service personnel while hundreds of still serving staff are wallowing in the stinking mire of past and present continuous impecuniousity!

Let the truth be told, this is nothing but sheer oppression and wickedness that the Almighty must find unpalatable. Why are the powers that be, treat the lowly with such spite and inconsideration?

Honestly, I don’t understand. Can’t understand.

'The Great Promoters' By Adesina Ogunlana

God is with this magazine, called the Squib. How I came to know? You see, just as the fortunes of the magazine appear sliding, it receives massive dosage of energy charging and image laundering boosts. For example when it was a mere infant, a complete little even ungainly presence in the legal profession, God sent an angel to fan embers of popularity for the magazine.
That angel was none other than the then Chief Judge of Lagos state, Ibitola Adebisi Sotuminu. Sotuminu C.J who in her younger days according to retired Justice Olufawo used to be known as “My Cleopatra” put her considerable clout to the task of promoting the Squib. She did this by picking a quarrel with the magazine and vowing to exterminate it. It was like having an elephant dueling with an ant. Such an ant, people reckoned must be a special, wonderful creature that they ought to know and meet.
Consequently Mr. Anonymous-Squib became Mr. Well Known-Squib. It was a case every week, of Squib here, Squib there, Squib everywhere. All, courtesy Mrs. Justice Sotuminu who even made things sweeter for the Squib by regularly abusing her and her publisher, Adesina Ogunlana. Mrs. Justice Sotuminu’s favourite tags for me were “miscreant” and “bad boy” while she famously said that the Squib was an obnoxious publications”
In the course of time. Sotuminu J. became part of the history of the Lagos State Judiciary. Fatai Adeyinka J. came in after Sotuminu C.J. He left shortly with no particular clean records. Adeyinka C.J kept his peace while the Squib roared. Then Adeyinka C.J went away with history.
Now it was the turn of Alabi C.J. the incumbent “Olori Oko”. The relationship between the C.J.O and the Squib took off on a friendly note. But since oil and water do not walk hand-in-hand the relationship soon turned frosty. The problem was that the Squib was an unrepentant astringent which cannot be mellowed with toothy grins, warm hand shakes, and back slaps.
Blunt, graphic and screaming as ever, it was not long before the Squib upset a sensitive Alabi C.J At a public gathering in March 2007 the C.J committed a Freudian slip when he referred to the Squib’s publisher as OMO WERE YEN (naughty nut).
Again this verbal missile helped the image of the Squib’s publisher a great deal. It’s no mean feat I tell you, to get a public acknowledgment from the prince of Chief Judges of Nigeria. After the naughty nut ornament was hung on my humble neck, adulation and adoration chased me all about the place. I became a Popular Jingo. Just like in the Sotuminu days, everybody wanted to meet the naughty nut. And you know everybody include those delicate, better shaped species of humanity that a creative mind once described as “sex on two legs”.
Now it is beginning to happen again. Another Judge of the Lagos High Court has become self-motivated to mount another round of promotion blitz for the Squib. The good judge and may God bless her ladyship abundantly is none other than Honourable justice Funmilayo Atilade. Her ladyship was presiding over a civil suit in which my chamber was representing some of the respondents. Incidentally another lawyer from the chambers and not my naughty nut self came for the matter.
Somehow my name came up in the course of the hearing. The name, yes the name was the cause of katakata in the court. Please read on:-
Atilade J. : Adesina Ogunlana? That name sounds familiar
Innocent Lawyer: (happily) yes milord. He is the editor of the Squib.
Atilade J: (up set) Oh, is that trash still on?
Innocent Lawyer: Very much so, and it is actually a good magazine
Atilade J. : Good magazine you say? That magazine which always attacks judges and sees nothing good in them?
Innocent Lawyer: My Lord, with due respect sir, the Squib is not like that. In fact there are many instances it commended judges and it is also helpful in the bar. In fact last week the magazine exposed a fake lawyer who has spent several years practicing as a lawyer.
Atilade J.: Look, one day when that magazine publishes a nasty story about you, then you will appreciate my point. For your own good you had better leave that chambers. They can’t teach you anything good. If you want to make progress in life and in this profession, take my advice and leave that chamber.
Innocent Lawyer: As the court pleases.
Poor girl. She reeled home in shock. But at home, she received a further shock. This is because, upon hearing of the demolition exercise of the honourable judge, the “villain of the piece”, the naughty nut instead of frowning and hopping made broke into a huge wide, grin.
The only thing he said was “Thank you God” May God bless the honourable judge with more vigour to carry out more attacks on the Squib. May God give her ladyship, bigger and more prominent platforms like the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, the UNITED NATIONS, BBC and CNN to say negative things against us”.
Of course, you should know the reason for the prayer-the bigger and more influential the attackers of the Squib and their platforms, the more successful the Squib becomes. So, with all heartfelt sense of gratitude and appreciation do I doff my hat to Honourable Justice Funmilayo Atilade of the Lagos High Court for the powerful, pungent and pugnacious attacks on my humble, naughty nut self and the “obnoxious” Squib on Tuesday 7th October 2008.
Please, my lady, accept the assurances of my warmest regards. E se pupo. E se gan ni!
N:B
By the way some people are wondering whether my clients in the case before Honourable Justice Atilade can get justice in the matter considering the intensity of the bitterness of the honourable Judge against their counsel.
Well, what do you guys think?

'Just How Learned Are We?' By Adesina Ogunlana

It took quite a while for the bubble to burst. For Sampson Bamgbose. The gentleman fraudster was in business as a legal practitioner for almost 19 years; even though he never trained as a lawyer nor was he called to the bar.
And was he a successful practitioner? No doubt. Information has it that the Attorney at Lie has a big “law chambers”, and two or three cars including a Jeep. To cap it all, he was in Ikorodu his last place of operation, a leading light of the bar! I mean, this was a chap who in year 2007 was a co-chair of the Law Week Programme of the Ikorodu Bar and had the opportunity and privilege of chairing a Disciplinary Panel of the same Ikorodu Bar!
The question should be asked how learned are the members of the legal profession? In fact are we learned at all? For if we are learned as we trumpet about, how come that a fellow who never studied law at any level could have done so well for himself, albeit illegally and for so long in the bar without detection for close to two decades?
Bamgbose was not a quiet felon who practiced his deceit silently. In fact he was like the old but extremely virile Pa Masaba of the 86 wives fame! Masaba was not a closet polygamy or a mass marriager! Pa Masaba took all his wives, one after the ardour, sorry, one after the other. For more than thirty years, he demonstrated his women or wives’ accumulation prowess in public. He did not practice his trade in the dark or in the clouds!
Before his down fall, Bamgbose must have given congratulated himself, more than a million times over his ingenuity, in successfully deceiving members of the bar. It is no big deal fooling lay men, to think of one as a legal practitioner, or a doctor, or an engineer. An effective pose hardly goes beyond donning the appropriate professional apparel, ‘blowing’ the appropriate parlances and jargons in proper English and above all wearing a cool and confident mien.
But one needs a superior intellect and act to fool professionals, to the level that they accept the fraudster as a good penny. I am only on a supposition however. Really how many truly certified lawyers are possessed of superior intellect even common sense or a sharp native intelligence? All too often one comes across qualified lawyers who behave foolishly, who are fooled easily by street wise clients and conduct themselves so sloppily in court that a judge may be tempted to order their caning.
For example I have come across lawyers who didn’t know why they were in court. I have seen those who did not know their clients and even more amazingly who did not know whether they were representing the defendants or the plaintiffs!
Only last week before Dada J of the Ikeja High Court I saw a lawyer who asserted strongly that “this is my first time in this court for this case” only for him to accept the very next minute upon proof shown by the court that he had appeared in court, at least once previously in the matter.
That Bamgbose could survive, excel even, for so long in the bar, suggests that possibly our trade is not all heavy intellectual stuff as we like to believe and make others believe.
I suspect something even worse that there are collaborators who for long knew that Bamgbose was just an imitation yet decided to keep their peace. Yet how can any learned man know of an abuse of his own profession, by an impostor and yet keep quiet? Such learned fellows should be regarded as ‘participis criminis’ in the “Barrister” Bamgbose scam. They provided the foliage and fauna for the imp to hide and flourish, or should we say, fester?
At the rate the scam was going, with a bit of more derring - do, Bamgbose could well have ended up in the inner bar or even on the bench!
And how ghastly that would have been- to have a fake judge or a fake silk. But then this is ‘Naija’ - anything including Bamgbose can happen.

'Letter to Debbie' By Adesina Ogunlana

Debbie dear,
As we say in these shores, ‘long time no see’ my darling. Really, it’s quite an age we last saw, although our mutual admirers imagine that great lovers that we are, we often see, meet and rub hearts together in a love nest in a hidden away exotic Island.
In reality we’ve hardly met beyond once, at most twice, since you bowed out of the judiciary. My thoughts strayed to you today, because of the brouhaha over the closure of the Channels Television Station.
You can trust the NBA, human rights’ groups and other busy-bodies to shout themselves hoarse over the ‘shut-up’ order on Channels. Of course the talk is about the need for government to respect press freedom and follow due process in her reaction.
Honestly I wonder at all these noise-makers. When a tsetse fly feasts on a man’s stone, what to do than to swat the impudent beast off and effectively as possible? Does any one talk of due process when violence lands on the back of the rude twat?
What people don’t know is that rumormongers are very dangerous indeed. In fact the more the truth content of the rumour, the more dangerous they are. Much worse is it, when the victims of their ear-tingling, mouth-widening and eye-popping information are ‘big’ men and women in society big men and women like Chief Judges, Governors, Ministers, Money bags, e.t.c.
What the Channels Television did was horrible, in fact horrendous. Peddling false hoods about the president of the country! What impertinence, for any one to claim that Mr. President, the God’s anointed leader of the Giant of Africa will lose his job voluntarily in a few weeks time. Is that another way of insinuating that the president is too ill to continue with his God ordained and PDP rigged in position?
I know you know how much a pain in the neck, the press could be. In your time in the judiciary as the “FOREMAN” a certain, stupid boy, later to be famously described as a nut (omo were yen) was to give you hell, literally so to say, with an obnoxious publication known to the whole world as SUKUBU. Week in, week out, the SUKUBU was publishing trash, and washing your dirty linen in public. Yet the people continued to buy the trash and so kept the rogue paper and her miscreant editor afloat. Of course you reacted appropriately to the provocation.
You too did what President Yar’Adua had just done-You slammed a ban on the trash paper and initiated the process of destroying the legal career of the paper’s miscreant editor. Such dangerous elements are not fit for the bar.
A lawyer in the first instance has no business being a journalist. He could be a publisher, yes. A publisher of law reports, of seminar and workshop papers, of biographies of living, dying or dead judges, of law text-books and legal novels ala John Grisham. Nothing more, nothing less.
With the benefit of hindsight and learning from the Channels Television experience, what you should have done that time against the SUKUBU idiot was to have invaded the office of his obnoxious paper and occupy it with men of the Security State Service while you arrest the nut and one or two his top geckos. Then you arraign them before one of your numerous courts on several counts of sedition and treasonable felony. After all even if it is true as the SUKUBU was alleging that a sum of 264 million naira of government money disappeared or appeared to have disappeared into the comfort of the confines of your GLOBE purse, did he have a share in it?
Journalists, trained and self-taught alike must comfort themselves in the presence of POWER, otherwise when POWER strikes, it may be sharply unpleasant. Only a fool will annoy people in POWER. And the easiest way to annoy POWER is to force it to hear the TRUTH.
My Debbie, I beg, enough of all this philosophy. One of these days, we actually need to see and meet. And chat. And hold hands. And look into each other’s eyes. And profess undying love to ourselves. And do more besides.

Yours troublesomely,
The First Gecko

'CONFESSIONS (OF A POLITICAL WITCH)' By Adesina Ogunlana

I am yet to meet the Nigerian who does not believe in the reality of witches. For the average Nigerian, witches are as real as God almighty himself.

The greatest attribute of a witch is, POWER. Any witch worth his, sorry, her venom must have lots of power. Hem, not the ‘gra-gra’ type of power commonly exhibited by unlicensed boxers and wrestlers such as motor park touts, thugs and ‘area boys.’ The power of the witch is the sedulous, insidious, mysterious type. Of course a ‘correct’ witch must abound in wickedness and be a perpetual incubator of sorrow, blood and tears in other human beings.

A well brought up witch is a firm believer and practitioner of the proverb; ‘charity begins at home,’ so a good witch ensures that the majority of the beneficiaries of her prowess are well within her jurisdiction; husbands, wives, children, siblings, cousins, in-laws, neighbours, family friends, office colleagues etc. This is to fulfill the scripture that says that a man’s foes are members of his own household; another way of saying that the insect that eats up the vegetable resides in the vegetable.

A proper witch does not go about boasting about her powers. She is a silent achiever. A quiet undertaker. A masked terror. A compassionate killer. When a cultured witch has done her humble task, she offers her heart-felt condolences and so often sheds bucketfuls of noncommissioned tears. They offer touching commiserations. They are the ones who surreptitiously arrange for Ajala to get a hiding, then turn round mouth agape to ask in all innocence – “Ajala, who beat you up so badly like this?”

Clearly then, the witch is a master of subterfuge, a hidden but deadly danger, the archetypal green snake under the green grass. Fortunately for everybody, a witch does not know how to die peacefully or quietly. When the end is near, the memories of all her evil achievements rise up to torment the witch. The witch now sees her so-called achievements as they truly are; acts of utter wickedness to fellow human beings.

Tormented beyond belief, the witch to obtain relief, confesses, usually in a large, open place with a lot of people around, to all his wicked deeds. Flogged mercilessly by a suddenly awakened conscience and with the damning prospect of a hellish after-life very much open to the tormented soul, the witch reveals all, in a no-holds-barred manner.

Let me give you a sample:

“Ha, Adekunle Ojo, ha! ha! ha! Let God forgive me!

Please forgive me! Adekunle, you came to me in Kaduna.

You came with your people. To my house, to seek my support for your ambition to become the 2nd Vice-President of the NBA.

You trusted me but you didn’t know that I was not for you.

Yes, I gave you advice to see a certain big man in Ibadan and to get him to like you.

I told you not to waste your money on certain logistics.

In short I gave you good advice but, I knew I was not for you.

I and some other people you regard as elders, fathers, etc., did not want you to succeed. We wanted a Northern star to shine, not a Western star. Certainly not your own star.

We have seen your star and we know how brightly it would shine later on in life so we didn’t want that.
So we worked day and night against you.

Alas, my son, you won! God is great! Forgive me! Forgive me!"

I am speaking to the deep here.

'Exit of the Stranger' By Adesina Ogunlana

‘Lisa, was, ah, sweet,
yummy, fast and smart,
and, don’t forget, light
and, of course, bright.

‘Lisa came y’ know,
at the time right
more like a bolt
with zest and gilt

From far ’Lisa eyed the seat,
and quick became the chap to heat
and soon won the fight
so to a stranger went our fleet.

But, strangers never stay
never! frays or no frays
strangers never stay

If I lie, tell me,
tell me, when next in the bar
you’ll ever see ‘Lisa
anytime after Abuja!
any time after now!
Oh, Lisa!

'The Post Graduate Approach' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

Sometimes, going to school can be so much of a waste of time. Worse, a man can come to grief simply by relying too much on the purported education he received from college. I ask, “what is the value of an education that does not adequately prepare the pupil on how to effectively cope with the bare realities of the human existence?”

Any sensible person soon discovers that schooling is useful to the extent that it provides a paper (paali) at the end of the day for the pupil which is the mark, but alas, not the proof of actual knowledge and mastery. In fact it is only after leaving school that the real school starts.

When you are a young, fresh faced smart law undergraduate, concepts such as ‘offer’ and ‘acceptance’ are so easy to grasp. But when you become a lawyer you soon realize that the ‘offer’ that resides in the clean and untainted environment of the text books on the law of contract is of a different nationality from the offer of the actual market place.

Also in school, the lawyer is taught very simple and clear things like “motions, injunctions” and soon he becomes giddy with information. But once out of school and in front of judges, mere motions become mountains while injunctions become disjunctions.

So much for school knowledge. And I can tell you, I have not seen, heard or met any successful person who relied on knowledge grabbed within the four corners of the classroom to achieve success. Instead what successful persons do is to embrace 'Post Graduate' ways and means and profit by the assimilation of the wisdom therein.
By Post Graduate ways and means, I do not mean all those LLM, M.A, MSc stuff – such are same of same.

A good example of a post graduate study programme is what some people alleged happened recently in Osun State. According to the report, a lawyer defending a party in a sensitive case was in the stimulating habit of friendly telephone chit-chats with the chairman of the trial panel.

When the verdict of the trial court was delivered, it turned the head to the party represented by the counsel who had been verbally carousing with the chairman of the panel, while it showed the hoof to the party on the other side.

Trust the losers to complain. But honestly, they and their lawyers do not have my sympathy. Particularly the lawyers. I understand these lawyers (to the losers) have written a petition against the judges who heard their case. By their petition they could be heard moaning and whining that judgement went against their clients due to the clandestine bar bench romance between their opposing colleague and the chairman of the panel.

The losers are carrying on as if it was a strange thing that happened. While they (and foolishly too, I say) relied on text book methods and classroom knowledge in their bid to win the case for their clients, the other side relied on the unfailing Post Graduate approach which dictates that blessed is the man who makes the river flow past his farm, than the fellow who hopes that the river will be sensible enough not to forget to call in to say hello to his parched farm land.

It is only in the law school that you are taught to win your cases in court by adequate preparation, wide consultation and attractive presentation of arguments to the trial court. How naïve! If you have a serious case in court, a serious lawyer will need no telling on what to do. You don’t win over a judge to your side in the open court but in chambers, which is free of the odious, distracting and interrupting influence and presence of the other party.

In that exclusive market atmosphere, the lawyer’s advocacy is expressed Mammonically and not grammatically. The forensic ability is manifested in cash, raw cash or in cool, fat drafts. In some instances, the persuasive authorities cited to the honourable trader in judicial robes may be some mammary valleys and mountains as well as some Venusian crevices. With all these acts of tender love, kindness, comfort and even pleasure of the sweetest types to the judicial trader, you can be rest assured then that sweet victory is yours – after all, you’ve bought justice, and at a judicious rate for that matter, from the right source.

Of course, Justice can be bought. It is only Justice of the text-book that is not for sale.

That type of justice does not exist any where else and only foolish lawyers will cry foul when the better known type of justice obeys market forces. Little wonder that nobody is taking the complaining lawyers seriously; even the judges affected in the saga simply donned the 'ma wo be' cap and read the bloody sorry, naira soaked judgement.

In short, the point is this – Good lawyers only know the law while successful lawyers know the judge. And not only in obodo Nigeria, I tell you.

'Third World Justice' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

I am a visitor from Mars and I didn't know my way about the cities of this truly wonderful planet, earth. I was told before coming that it was a planet with three worlds.

There is the first world, where everything or almost everything works. Light, water, telecommunications, transportation, technology, sports, economy, politics all work. The only thing I was told that does not work in the first world is religion and that is because the human beings of the first world are not interested in that spiritual enterprise, finding no particular need for it. Do you blame them? Who needs a marathon fast and 100 day prayer - induced medical healing when effective specialist hospitals abound?

And why would you heed Malachi 3:8 when your country takes good care of, you from cradle to grave? I was told that there is also a second world. Also a good world, I was told though, it is not so excellently organised like the wonder-world of the first type. The third world I was told is not a very pleasant place because things do not work and the society is backward, very backward indeed.

In the third world, the economy is wonky, meaning that poverty, insecurity and hardship are well known 'faces' in the society. The government is even wonkier, meaning that the more the government, the less the real governance. And what sustains the people is a special type of diet consisting in the main of, hope, prayers and self-help. However I was assured that a third world country is not all sorrow blood and tears. There are Oases of Pleasure, Islands of Enjoyment and Corners of Goodness, but they are far and few between and are not open to the wretched masses of this world due to their prohibitive cost.

My space ship's first port of call was a place called Lagos on the continent of Africa.

I immediately asked to be taken to the courts of Justice of the people of Lagos State. You see, when you want to know the character of a society, study the character of their justice and how they administer it.
Approaching the Lagos High Court Igbosere, I smiled broadly. I saw the gigantic edifice, the green lawns, the palms and the 'macadamised' streets. Everything looked solid and fresh.

Then I entered one of the court-rooms and I became instantly afraid. I thought I had mis-laid my steps into a tomb, so dark and eerie was the place. I noticed that some earthlings were in there, but I could barely make out their features for the dimness.

Of course no session was on. You can't do justice in darkness. I went out and entered into another round of darkness. I went into other courts, the darkness persisted. The second day I came to the court the darkness was still there. Sincerely the third, fourth, fifth and sixth day. Even up till today the darkness is still there in the beautiful looking Lagos State High Court and justice remains under arrest.

I now realised that Lagos, cannot be an example of a first world civilisation. Though Lagos has a BRF Governor running a BRT transport scheme, two universities, several polytechnics, etc, it is a third world country nonetheless. It is not even a second world existence. Yet I hear that the city, Lagos is touted the most sophisticated in Nigeria, which is touted the giant of Africa, which is touted the origin of human civilisation in the universe.

Do you know why I a Martian smile and laugh at the same time?

'Lies of Life' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

Democracy has many problems and this is no surprise. At least to me. The system is too elaborate and depends on the goodness of the hearts of her main operators to succeed. Of course we all know the condition of our hearts. According to the Bible – the heart of man, is, mark the qualifier, 'desperately wicked.' Of course that heart becomes at least ten times more evil if they belong to politicians in third world countries. Please, why did your mind stray to Robert “The immortal” Mugabe?

However I think one of the biggest problems with democracy is because it is settled and founded on some irredeemable mendacity. Just consider one of the “big, big lie” of democracy – all men are equal. This lie is one of the tenets of democracy, hence in a polity, voters are ranked equally, once they are not infants, lunatics, convicts and aliens. Thus, each of them have a right to only one vote, regardless of their education, influence, wealth, status etc.

Consequently in political contests, leaders comes to office on the strength of their popularity above that of their opponents. And how do you judge popularity contests in a democracy? It is only through one means - the number of votes in favour of one candidate against the lesser number of those in favour of his opponent(s).

It will not matter then, if the majority consist of the ignorant, the misguided, society light-weights etc, so long as they are the majority. The choice of the majority no matter who the minority are, say egg-heads, business gurus, captains of industry, top-profile professionals, must prevail. The principle of equality of man is at work.

But are all men really equal? I don’t think so. Maybe they are in some other climes but certainly not in Nigeria. Certainly not in the Lagos State Judiciary. I come to this conclusion because of the late Lateef Osho Jogunomi. Jogunomi died about three weeks ago He was an auxiliary staff with the sheriff department of the Lagos State Judiciary.

One day he was coming back from work, when he met his death. His untimely death. In the licensed(?) hands of a power drunk Lagos State Transport Management Authority Staff. The LASTMA killer slew Jogunomi by violently pushing him to the ground. Jogunomi hit the back of his head on the concrete and the rest was his burial, and the grief and suffering of his suddenly dis-fathered family.

Since the man died, nothing much has been heard about his case. I guess the Judiciary merely cocked a brief puzzled look at the incident and continued on her way.
Now assume that Jogunomi, was a judge, or a Chief Judge, a registrar or a chief registrar, a magistrate or a chief magistrate, certainly the judiciary would do more than cast a look or shrug a shoulder.
There would will be hues and cries. The death of the dead great one will would be made to disturb the lives and concerns of the living. And it would not matter whether the fallen judge is a judicial Oyenusi, or the departed magistrate is a bench robber. All that would matter is that he was a top dog.
Are all men equal?

'Fake Solutions' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

Once upon a time, there were two close friends, named Joju and Loju. One day Joju cropped a cough from God knew where. Loju too discovered that he had ring worms on his hands and legs.

It was not long that the ailments drove the two friends to despair; particularly as the ailments were not members of the society of silence. Joju's cough did not care for occasions, neither Loju's epidermal home grown embarrassment. Joju might be in the middle of some disquisition on matters of the heart with a pretty lass or was busy closing a deal with a craftsman, when the tormentor in his throat would compel him to start violent vocalisation in fits and spurts.

As for Loju, the sudden orders to start scratching away, with careless, but compulsory abandon tended not to come in the privacy of his room or while in the solitary walk to his farm. Rather the signals were often received in the market place, family meetings, or during the popular ayo games.

In short, the friends before long became objects of ridicule in their village. Then one of their neighbours called Amona, told them the obvious truth
“You guys need to see a doctor fast” said Amona.
The friends eagerly agreed but which of the doctors to see? Amona told them of a very good doctor who dispensed efficacious medications. The only problem was “his medicines tend to be bitter, most of the time”
“Bitter medicine!” Both friends cried out t the same time and begged Amona to take them to another doctor. Amona agreed saying “I know another one his own medicines are anything but bitter. They will make you FEEL better in no time”

Joju and Loju without hesitation indicated their interest in this second doctor. When they got to the man's clinic, the doctor quickly confirmed his reputation as a dispenser of interesting medicines.
“Joju your case is easy.
Loju your case too is easy. In fact very easy. For you Joju, your medicine is akara that has pepper and onions, while Loju your medicine is 'adi-agbon' (palm-kernel oil)” declared the doctor.
The two friends were over joyed. Joju incidentally loved eating akara while Loju really fancied adigbon's for its smell and the shine it gives the body.

Very happily and eagerly both look to their medicines and for a while it appeared as if their ailments were losing out to the onslaught of the “new improved medicine.” For example Joju's coughing fits reduced from 4 times a minute to twice a minute while Loju's “scratch-mania” became mere “scratchy- scratchy”

However at the end of a week, the two friends realised that they had only been foolish in relying on peppered akara to cure whooping cough and adi-agbon to drive away virulent attacks of ring- worms. So they rushed back to Amona to lead them to the door step of the doctor “with the bitter but effective medicine”.

Now, how I wish Lagos State would do likewise in the matter of creating neatness, orderliness on Lagos streets. The solution certainly does not lie in the type of recent funny legislations of the State, where huge sums of money are to be slammed on those who contravene traffic regulations, or those who hawk wares on the highway.

These news laws are not only outrageous for being impractical and insensitive, but also because they leave the fundamental problems that led to this sad situation untouched while focusing on consequences or effect of the problems. They may at first appear to be working but they will ultimately failed just like peppered akara treatment for whooping cough. The highway hawkers and the mad drivers will bounce back because the laws do not attack the roots of their creation.

'Help! Judges Are Thrilling Me' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

Help! Judges are thrilling me. I think I should be more specific. Help! Lagos State High Court Judges are thrilling me. May be I should be more elaborate – please help me, come to my aid, render assistance to me, bail me out, offer me comfort, afford me your support, because lo and behold, I am beginning to experience, serial, continuous and continuing and I hope perpetual enjoyment in the hands of Judges of Lagos State High Court, my primary – constituency.

Why you may need to help me is because if the enjoyment becomes persistent, perpetual and permanent, this columnist, a.k.a the First Gecko may be out of job, fully or substantially.
Am I speaking in riddles? May be I am not even making much sense. Pardon me. I suspect that my brain or at least the fraction or faction of it known and called the medulla oblongata, and which is situate, lying and being at the southern most part of my occipital cylinder is intoxicated and consequently flabbergasted with the heady fumes of the commendable actions of our said judges.

From my personal experience and from what I gather from colleagues, the chances that you will smile out of a Lagos State High Court, than frown are about the chances of an orangutan humming Handel’s Hallelujah! It is either the judges are not there, or when there, many are impatient or rude or down right irritable with counsel. It is a well known fact that most lawyers, at least the senior ones, know law much more than most judges, with the perplexing situation of having the initiates being wiser than the chief priest of the goddess Justice.

But last week was special and different, at least for me. On Monday I had a splendid time in court. The court of Honourable Justice Oyefeso. Everybody knows this is one sweet, polite and perspicacious judge. At the end of my matter, I requested for cost to be paid by the absentee other party. When the honourable judge heard me out, His Lordship adjourned the matter without any reference to my request for cost.

Trust me to remind the judge. The judge’s reaction was to wear an earnest look after saying an apologetic ‘Oh’. Then the judicial pen scribbled rapidly away and I was happy that I’d be getting the cost. But you know what the judge said? “Cause shall be in cost.” The joke was on me. But it was pleasant and so adroitly delivered.

On Tuesday, the 10th June 2008, duty and destiny (if you believe it exists) brought me to the court of Justice Kayode - Ogunmekan. Now Kayode Ogunmekan J is your harsh exterior, soft interior, the kind but rather no-nonsense aunty type. If you want to get Kayode – Ogunmekan J’s goat, go to His Lordship’s court unprepared and top it with lame excuses. You can be sure you’ll get it. Ask State Counsel, who have plied their trade in that territory.

But on Tuesday 10th June, it was the angelic side of the honourable judge all those present in court saw. It was so touching seeing Ogunmekan J consoling, comforting and advising a lady litigant on how best to cope with the terrible challenges her troubled marriage had thrown up. I don’t think a certified Christian marriage counselor could have been done any better! What I found significant was the ease with which the judge dumped law ad legalism to embrace Christian theology, personal experience and home-spun philosophy to tackle the human angle factors of the case.

On Wednesday 11th June 2008, the happy day that saw the passing away of Chief Lamidi Adedibu, the Pro-chancellor of the Ibadan based Amala and Igbati University of Garrison Politics, I was opportuned to be at Honourable Justice Dada’s court at the Ikeja High Court.
Many of the lawyers who have appeared before Dada J told me, His Lordship reminded them in some ways of Kudirat Kekere –Ekun J.C.A.

In her years as Kekere - Ekun J in the Lagos State High Court, His Lordship was a hardworking but strict, narrow and unsmiling judge. Kekere-Ekun J was always business-like in her court, permanently expression less.
It was easy then for such a judge to be labelled “hard” or even “wicked! The same reputation Dada J, rather unfairly, is gathering. But on Wednesday 11th June 2008, what the judge displayed in the case of a bank worker she convicted of failure to prevent a felony or such like offence was nothing but sheer kindness. The honourable judge could have hauled the fellow straight away to two year stay at the Government Resort Centre Kirikiri, as his case deserved, but rather the judge ordered him to pay a million naira as fine instead. And that is not all – the judge gave the fellow a 14 day grace to raise the funds before the gates of the resort centre should be made to close against him if he defaults. I thought that was beautiful of the judge, but you don’t praise Dada J to His Lordship’s face in court.

I think from all the above stories, you’ll agree with me that if our judges, or at least 80% of them should do like their learned siblings aforementioned I’ll soon be out of job or at least almost out of job-: there won’t be much of anything worth complaining about in the Judiciary and legal profession, at least in Lagos State.

Well, I hope the day will come. The day, geckos will no longer be on duty and my pen will rest. But is that the way of the world?

'Identity Crisis' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

Last week, precisely Monday the 2nd of June 2008, a call came through my ‘Gizm’ pack. The voice that sounded in my ears clearly painted the picture that the caller was distressed and agitated.
“You just have to come quickly to the High Court and read for yourself the much of NBA Ikeja money you have been alleged to have misappropriated.” said the voice.

Okay, so I was the ‘allegee.’ That’s settled. But who was the “alleger?” I asked the voice. When there’s a report that you are a scoundrel, it is natural to want to know who or what the accuser(s) is.
My accuser, good enough had a name but arduously, lacked an identity. According to my caller, the accuser went by the name Transparency Group (NBA Ikeja).

My immediate reaction was to laugh and hiss at the same time. Just a week earlier, I learnt that a so called Integrity Lawyers Group, sent a mail, courtesy internet services, to the world, including recuperating Chief Gani Fawehinmi S.A.N claiming most mendaciously that I “chopped” some NBA Ikeja branch funds. Not by myself alone, mind you, but with some like-minds.

When I was told of the sub-standard mendacity of the Integrity Group, I asked for the identity of the authors of the big lie. And I was told that the authors were playing ‘lagbaja’ with their identity. All that could be seen or heard or known of them was their mask or paraphernalia of rikisi (intrigue and mischief).

Most interestingly I heard that some friends of mine are terribly upset about the lies of the Otegrity and Otasparency groups against me. Some of these friends went to fetch their guns, some looked for matchets and most frighteningly of all, some headed for Ijebu. You know what that means.
May I use this opportunity to appeal to my concerned friends to sheath their swords? It is not necessary to take up arms in the circumstances. And, I am serious about this.
Alright, the allegation is weighty. For a thief catcher to be labelled a thief, embezzler of public funds is not a compliment. No doubt. But what reasonable person will take the accusation of a ghost, a disembodied being, a faceless twat(s) serious?
Verily I tell you, both the Otegrity group as well as the Otasparency group are ghosts, inhabitants of the never-never world called FANTASY, which is quite some appreciable distance from the earth. And I don’t deal with ghosts, just like any reasonable humanoid.
Let the ghosts cry and wail and shout to the high heavens that I am even a bank robber, I will not be moved. Ghosts don’t move me, much less their rantings.

'Lord of the Manor' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

A man’s home is said to be his castle. Why? And, why castle? A castle is a symbol of a haven, a place of safety, even redoubt of freedom and liberty for the owner. In one’s home, properly so called, one feels very free indeed. Free to be at peace and ease with one self. Free to display and disport without fear of attack, criticism exposure or ridicule.
A man’s home, little wonder then, is one of his most prized possessions. Of course homes come in different shapes and sizes, the important thing is that it must really be a place where a person feels the least qualms and where he is most likely to be true to himself.
In one’s home you can dine on any-thing, any-how and any-time. For example, I know of a man who has two different ways taking bread and tea.
In high society, and away from home, he eats his bread, in bits and pieces, carefully, thoughtfully and meticulously chewing his transformed wheat and then sips his tea straight way from the cup ever so gently and with utmost delicacy. He makes no fuss about his tea or his bread, no matter how unsatisfactory to his buccal canyon and esophageal tunnel.
This same man (please stop suspecting me as the culprit) tackles his bread and tea in more liberal terms once at home. For starters, he spoons into his mouth some of the tea for tentative appreciation of its virtues, before casting some parts of the bread into the enriched and sweetened and coloured, hot H2O.
He then waits a few seconds, about five, before hauling the delicious lump into his mouth. Of course, we all know, that’s a barbaric way of dining on bread and tea, but our man does not care-after all it is a home-based barbarity.
In one’s house, one, depending on the circumstances, can afford to walk about in the manner of Adam and Eve, before the duo discovered the art of fashion designing or one may adopt the 80% nudity style popularised by Fela Anikulapo Kuti, where the only piece of cloth on a person only covers his or her genitalia.
Clearly not many people are like Fela, so only a few can embrace the 80% nudity style. But only a few, especially men will, in their own homes, feel too embarrassed to go about half-naked, especially waist-up. But how many can afford to adopt even the 50% nudity style outside their homes? You don’t know any? I don’t blame you. Even me, I only know one person, who did that.
This wonderful person is a lawyer, a senior lawyer, called to the bar twenty-two years ago. He is an easy going and quietly successful specialist counsel. What the gentleman does not know about moving and perfecting bail (at the magistrate courts) is not worth knowing.
On Thursday, 29th May 2008, (Democracy) I came to meet a client in compound B of the Ikeja High court. Barrister Osita Egonu also came to do the same. But while waiting for his client Barrister Egonu removed his buba. He was left wearing only his trousers.
As he strolled about the compound looking for a cool place to stay and enjoy his newspapers, the barrister was a sight to behold. To me, he caught the perfect picture of a lord of the manor. His tummy described a modest convex and there was this Mona Lisa-ish half-smile playing on his hips. So free was barrister Egonu in the court premises, that Thursday afternoon than one could easily mistake the premises to be part of the man’s estate.
One young buck who was with me, however wondered at barrister Egonu’s appearance. Said the buck “Sir, honestly I thought the man was one of the gardeners in the compound or may be one of the gate-men.”
Fortunately Osita Egonu is a lawyer and not a gardener or a gate man (even if he looked the part on democracy day). And we thank the Lord for that.

'All Lagosians' By Adesina Ogunlana

The Learned Squib

If you are educated, not to talk, learned, and you are not a General Olusegun “Babanyabo” Obasanjo, ex third-term presidential aspirant, ex life-time presidential hopeful, the chances are that, you won’t mind reading newspapers, at least Nigerian dailies.

Generally people read newspapers to get information. All manners of information, obituaries inclusive. By the way obituaries can make very interesting reads. For example there was this obituary (trust me to fabricate one) where the announcer started by stating that it was with a heavy heart that the family of the deceased was announcing the passing away of their “grand father, father, uncle, (area uncle?) brother, son e.t.c but mid-way paused to ask Mr. Death a rather-silly question-Death, where is thy sting? Now if Death had no sting, where did the family fetch their heavy hearts from?

Just this Saturday morning (May 24 2008), I stumbled on a fascinating advertisement on page A28 of the Punch newspaper of the day. The advert was placed by no less a worthy than one Professor Bamidele Badejo, described as Honourable Commisssioner for Transportation. Of Lagos State, I presumed.

The advert, a full page, carried in-toto the provisions of a new law, PUBLIC ROADS, SET BACKS (Social Religions and Commercial Function Prohibition) Removal of obstruction law.

This new law has some rather interesting aspects, which include criminalising the holding of religious activities or maintaining mechanic workshops on public roads. But I am not bothering my nose about any such aspects. And, you can’t blame me. I am not a pastor or the son of a pastor but a mere in-law to one or two pastors- of the Pentecostal hue-so the chances of my holding a religious crusade on a public road is rather slim. I am also, not a mechanic, a fairly obvious fact, so again I cannot be affected by the law.

What I find most fascinating in the advert is just a line in the preamble to the law. The line reads-
“All Lagosians are enjoined to adhere strictly to the provision of this law as violators would be apprehended and prosecuted”.
And in this line, what I found most touching and alarming at the same time were the first two words “All Lagosians.”

From the sentence, it appears that the notice of the law is specially meant for Lagosians, so that they will not run foul of it.

But who is a Lagosian? Is it anybody habitually resident in Lagos, whether from birth or otherwise? Or is it any member of the families of the founders of the various communities in the state, the so called Omo-Onile?

All these questions, to me are pertinent now more that ever when juicy positions in the Lagos State Government are given in preference to Lagosians above non-Lagosians. In such contexts, the only persons who qualify to be called Lagosians are those whose roots are located ‘from time immemorial’ in sons-of-the-soil families. It doesn’t matter whether the other Lagosians have been paying tax to Lagos State ‘from time immemorial.’

But could this definition apply to the observance of the new law?

I looked at the interpretation section of the new law but could not find any listing or definition of the word ‘Lagosian’.

So once again ladies and gentlemen, who is a Lagosian?

"Hanging Around' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB


There is something almost always sinister about the word ‘hang.’ At least for me. Anytime, I come across the word, either written or vocalized, prefix-ed or prefix-less, in any time sense (past, continuous, present) I always see in my mind’s eye a noose round the neck of an unfortunate member of the homo-sapiens.


I tell you, the word hang always goes with a clang in my head. Instead of a tang, what it has is a fang that sinks into the flesh of my mind bringing up morbid thoughts.


So you can imagine my sense of unpleasantness, when I was told recently at a formation of the Nigerian Police, that while waiting for the police officer who would attend to me, I should “hang around somewhere outside”


Really I couldn’t believe my ears. “Hang around?” I asked incredulously from the police sentry, one of a trio, who advised my “hanging around”
“Oh yes, just outside there” said the police man, quite matter of factly as if it were the most natural thing to do in the world! I was puzzled. Fairly so. I looked round me. The police formation was in a large, neat-looking, almost serene compound. There were some-one-story buildings in there. The sun was pouring in the hard, wide concrete central court yard. Outside the gates, the sun was no less merciful. Several cars were parked all over the streets adjoining the police-formation.


“I can’t hang around. I am a lawyer. How can I hang around? Don’t you people have a reception or something”? I asked with some heat. My outburst was greeted with a huge, hearty and prolonged laughter by one of the policemen. It first started as a merry twinkle in the eye, then the cop’s checks spread out in a broad grin, then rapidly everything dissolved into a convulsion of truly merry guffaw.
“Ah this oga is funny o.” opined the policeman, whilst still in the panoxysm of his hilarity.
“Reception? In a police station? asked the man doubling up now in real mirth. “We don’t have time for all that here” Then he went on laughing.
Of course my sympathy went to the man. Clearly the cop is a man whose mind has become so twisted that he accepted the anomalous situation of no reception or waiting room for callers as normal, good and proper. That cop, I guess is in the class of those who laugh at their own calamity!


Of course I did not go out and “find somewhere to hang”. Rather I made the cops get me a comfortable place to sit to await my man. I would rather have left than hang around. Why should I hang around? I am not in the class of those who hang around or hang about. I am not a motor-park tout who hang around motor-parks. I am not a by-the-roadside-affidavit maker who hangs around court-rooms and vehicle licensing offices.
As well known, I am not a bouncer or a thug. So I have no politician or and his wife to hang around. I am not a contractor, so I have no reason to hang around civil servants.


In short I am not a hang around material. I am a lawyer. A barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
“Hang around, ke? Out of the question, sir”! That was what I told them at the MILVERTON Road Ikoyi empire of Barrister Yinka Balogun, the commissioner of police in charge of the Special Fraud Unit a few days ago.
Imagine the cheek - asking a lawyer to be loitering about while waiting for an I.P.O. What if the police should arrest 'hanging about lawyer' for wandering? Don’t say “impossible!”

'UN-JADED' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB
Those who know a bit of my history know that some special ladies are quite important in my life. One of such ladies was late Professor Jadesola Akande I wouldn’t have known her at all, if I hadn’t chosen in 1989 to obtain a law degree in her domain – the Lagos State University. And even then as a Law Student, I might never have come across her, for she was then the Almighty Vice-Chancellor of the citadel and little me, one of the several thousand students of the University.

But then by second year of my studies, I had levitated from the tepid waters of Law Students politics, where the shine of one’s shoes, the texture of one’ coat, the cultured cadences of one’s affected speeches and the angularity of ones nostrils, in the air as well as the aroma of one’s pedigree, determine greatly the success of the political animal, and had gravitated to the tempestuous waves of Students’ Unionism where brains and brawn must mix admirably in the political gladiator to survive hard knocks and escape 'knock – outs’ from political rivals, the government and the University administration.

So as a Student Union Leader, duty brought me closer to Professor Akande. It was a testy relationship, which saw the V.C one occasion attempting to slap a ban on my tongue at a meeting of the Union Leaders with her. On another occasion the tough lady, apparently losing control of the University, issued an unmasked threat to me and the president Wale Okuniyi to use brutal force to contain us (Union Leaders). At the end of the day, since two captains cannot command a ship at a time – Mama banned our Union and expelled Union Leaders. But she could only do that from the safety of her home–LASU had become too hot for her. She left, “by force, by fire” December 8 1992, her car chased by dozens of enraged students, who thank goodness, failed to outrun the automobile, even when moving in reverse.

After leaving LASU, Professor Akande’s star did not dim. Rather it was getting brighter. That was, I think rather remarkable. Many past Vice –Chancellors, Governors, presidents who leave office just melt away into steady oblivion. After just two years- people would have to scratch their heads to remember the names of all these ex-this, ex- that.

But Jadesola’s case was different. She settled down to become a gender activist, human right activist, humanist, bar woman; of course she remained an educationist. In year 2000, Jadesola became the Pro- Chancellor of a Federal University, probably the first former vice- chancellor, to become a pro-chancellor. Along the way, she also bagged the Commander of the Order of the Niger title (CON) and then that of Officer of the Republic (OFR).

But Jadesola was not just an intellectual, she was also, a lady of action – including street protest. Most unusual I dare say, for some one of her honey and milk background.

In 2005, Jadesola was tear-gassed by anti riot police men who were sent to disperse the crowd who had gathered with her on a street to protest one plane crash incident too many which had taken away the souls of several dozens of people.
That was the type of a lady Jadesola Akande was, and not the type that many of the elites class who attended her wake-keeping and burial ceremonies, last week tried to paint. Many of the afore-mentioned, appeared rather taken aback and even discomfited if not rather afraid to see students union activists taking a part in the ceremonies, in their ususal “revolutionary manner.”
An activist died and all what the organisers of her wake-keeping wanted to happen was the wearing of solemn looks, salad speeches and “unto you-thee-lord-my-soul” songs. Those officially allowed to speak dwelled on everything Jadesola except her activisim.
To redress the situation and correct the inbalance, the activists’ cadre present took up a song, which went thus:
“There is victory for us
there is victory for us
in the struggle for good governance
there is VICTORY for us”
Forward ever, Backward never
In the struggle for good governance
there is VICTORY for us”.
The activists formed two rows along the exit route and sang lustily. I was there in the cadre and I saw the baffled, if worried looks on many faces of members of the pampered class as they passed through the lines, half expecting I suppose, that they would be molested.
But nothing ontoward happened. They (the frightened and the worried) needed not fear. An activist is not a rogue. He is actually a good citizen. A patriot. Just like Jadesola who passed away un-jaded.

'Never Trust A Ghost' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB
Last week, the Squib’s cover story was about workers recalled to service of the Lagos State Judiciary. Some weeks back, they (the said workers) had been placed on suspension without pay.

The threat to their regular employment and daily bread came in the form a letter of complaint (petition) against the workers, alleging basically that they were guilty of corruption.
As soon as the authorities of the Lagos State Judiciary received this letter, the workers were in trouble.

Nobody in the corridors of power it would appear, cared to pause even a second, to conduct preliminary, however cursory investigation into the merit of the petition, before pushing the bitter pill of suspension down the unwilling throats of the workers.

No worker likes any letter carrying any threat to their meal ticket, no matter how remote. So, when they received a combined honours’ missive from the authorities, to wit letter of query and letter of suspension, their hearts failed. I heard that many of them went beyond physical solutions. They embraced, the metaphysical, joined it with the spiritual, and landed on some mountains celestial, all in a bid not to lose their jobs.
Then one day, not too log ago, fortune smiled on them, a miracle happened - the Lagos Judiciary lifted their suspension and put them back in their positions.

The miracle, well one may say, may not be one after all. The simple truth is that the workers were called back, upon ample proof that the petition against the workers was penned by a ghost.

An obnoxious publication (not the Squib) had gone to town exposing that the purported Ajewole, the author of the petition was not a lawyer as claimed but a non-existent person.

Of course, we all know that the must a ghost can do, (in the coffers of his coffin) is to write anything, just about anything against his opponents. But when it comes to defending the grievous allegations so lavishly made, you won’t ever see the ghost.

The good thing about the whole episode is that the Lagos State Judiciary saw the error of her way and quickly and wisely retraced her steps.

It is a wonder really that a sharp Judiciary like the Lagos Judiciary could be misled so cheaply by a mischief maker.
But then, we learn everyday, I guess.

'Waiting For Golgotha' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

At the Ikeja High Court premises and appurtenances, I fancy to think that I am a fairly regular face. Last week, I was however rather scarce on the Ikeja High Court circuit. The 'scarcity' was caused by a number of reasons; one of which was that I had (underline, had) to find my way to Abuja on Tuesday 22nd April 2008. Until very late I didn’t know I had to go but go all the same I had to, even if one had to rob a corpse to raise funds for travel.

It was an irresistible call- not the call of nature, not the call of God, probably the call of destiny. If you are a boat-rocker, it is your fate certainly, that you’ll face trials, temptations also, and don’t you think ‘persecutions’ will fit the list?

I went necessarily to Abuja last week to face trial, trial before the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee of the Body of Benchers. For the first time ever in five years, I went alone.

My friends and followers alike were not there. Even my all-weather Dad, Daddy 3 was not there – for the singular reason of the shortness of the notice, for the respondent ( a polite name and soft alias for an accused or sinner…..) my good self, to show up in Abuja for my trial.

Of course, I missed Dad’s presence on that journey. G.O.K is always talking sense, talking history, talking ethics, talking standards, teaching values. At the mundane level he will even buy one snacks and the like and who can blame one for basking in the refulgence of the titan’s glow when he is around one?

When I got to the court, a special court where a legal masquerade may go into and emerge without his wig, grown, bib and his esquire title, I saw the bar. You see, every court must have a bar and this special court has one.
The special bar of this special court has two unique features. One, the bar is located on the corridor that leads to the court outside the court room and it is so strategically placed that the gentlemen of the bar are so glaringly presented to the passing world! As different people go to and fro their different ways right in front of the bar, they see the bar and its members.

The second peculiar feature is that it is a bar without distinction. There is no inner bar there. The bar accommodates all classes of lawyers. It is one (un)happy bar.
I call it an unhappy bar, because that’s what that bar really is. The bar men often look sad, cowed and hushed. There is, always, hanging around most of them, an air of painful expectancy – that it would soon be their turn to proceed to Golgotha!

In his element, a lawyer is a handsome specimen to behold, confident expressive, assertive demonstrative, bubbling with life. But in the special bar, which I call the “Sinners Row,” the spunk is gone out most of the members therein.
So what you see in their faces, carriage and body language, is worry, confusion, anxiety and barely- disguised terror. It is like sitting for the examination of one’s very life before a capricious and arbitrary examiner. At least, this what appears to me be the perception of most of the men of the special bar.

The last time I was there, I was about the only ‘sinner’ in that infamous row with any glow. To dispel despair and peel away the pervading chill, I had strolled out of the bar and procured some soft drinks and newspapers which I distributed to my colleagues in tribulation. I noticed that virtually everybody was shocked at my action. The generosity was appreciated but the timing gave my folks the jiminies.

Can’t blame them I say – some were so far gone with terror that they feared that they would be confronted by the authorities with additional charges of misconduct, if seen enjoying light refreshments…. while waiting for Golgotha!

'Good morning Gentlemen' By Adesina Ogunlana

THE LEARNED SQUIB

In 1981, when I gained admission to Great Ife (if you don’t know what Great Ife means, you shouldn’t read any longer) to study the language of the ruler of the now extant empire where the sun never sets, I was a kid. Just 17. When I left four years later, still a kid I was.

But what a kid! One had had all manners of exposure and interactions at the best university, at least in that era, this side of the sea. The experience was wide ranging - from becoming a specialist in teasing girls (especially Moza girls - the famous motherless babes) to surviving on 0-0-1 or 1-0-1 rations, from watching I-Go-Do films, 20 kobo or 50 kobo or so to enjoying big entertainment groups like SHALAMAR, B.L.O etc.

In my time at Ife, almost everything (except few horrible toilets) was a thriller. Oduduwa Hall was a thriller. The Amphitheater was a thriller. Even Hezekiah Oluwasanmi Library was a thriller (what an array of wonderful books). The Cafeteria was a thriller. We could die for the fare. Believe me, a plate of ‘eba’ or ‘amala’ with three “kandu, kandu” pieces of meat, or an intimidating chest or hefty thigh of a chicken, plus orange squash or ice-cream all for 50 kobo.

The Sports Centre was a thriller. NUGA ’84 that held there was for me, unforgettable for two reasons - the Port-Harcourt contigent on the opening march past paraded the sweetest, ‘reddest’ pairs of female thighs, I have, up till date, ever seen and the host, Great Ife paraded in her soccer team a leggy wizard of a No. 10., Kayode ‘Zege’ Balogun in the soccer finals, who in the second half buried a wonderful A.B.U team with his fantastic dribbling runs. Zege is said to be the last child of the legendary Teslim “Thunder” Balogun.

The Students Union Building was another thriller, probably for me, one of the ‘thrilliest’ of all. This because it was the ‘Aso Rock’ of Students Union leaders and activists.

And boy was I interested in Students Unionism? What young idealistic, adventurous young boy wouldn’t be? Politics and politicking was fun and for us, the greatest place to be in the whole world was Students’ Union elections time at Great Ife.

The candidates were almost always exciting, even exotic. What of the electorate? Equally exacting and mischievous and capricious. What moved us was the posters, banners, the drumming, the trumpeting and above all, the “lai - wo - we igilarity” (fast flowing, off-hand bombastic orations).

It was 1982 or was it 1983, and there was going to be a debate among the presidential candidates. There were about four or five of them. Till that night, the leading candidate was George Oguntuase. If I am not mistaken. When the debate started, the first speaker could be said to be the last speaker. His name was Chris Fajemifo a.k.a “Fajee.”

Interestingly enough, ‘Fajee’ only uttered one line and that was it. The line sent waves of ecstacy, even sweet insanity among the crowd. Pandemonium of applause and cat calls broke out and that was it. On the strength of one line delivery, ‘Fajee’ rode on to the presidency of Great Ife! Fajee’s one liner was: “John Locke said and I quote.”

I have all this story of Honourable Justice Josephine Efunkunbi Oyefeso (Mrs.) of the Ikeja High Court. I love many things about the court of the honourable judge - the cool efficiency, the calm consideration and the obvious cogitation.

And there is still one other thing. Milady like Fajee has a fascinating one line delivery that is “breaking many lawyers’ neck’ ( Oun da won l’orun) so to speak.

When milady comes to court, just before taking her seat, the judge says so softly but clearly, “Good morning gentlemen.” Then, the business of the day starts. The first time I heard the one liner, I looked at the honourable judge. Then, I sighed - I could only sigh. Because I knew it was too late! Encumbrances, right, left and centre.

Well, thank you milady for being a real lady and treating the bar and everybody else, like human beings.