'When Guns Boom' By Adesina Ogunlana

…UPDATE ON



MOOD JUST BEFORE RECENT NBA CONFERENCE IN PORT-HARCOURT






I am not too sure now, who first observed that “when guns boom, laws are silent.” However I doubt whether any reasonable person will fault the merit in that truly chilly statement. When guns boom.


A gun is a terror. An instrument of execution, and death. It is a symbol of not just power but of terror. An agent of death. A terminator. So you don’t joke with a gun, except maybe it is a “toy gun.”


Now when such a “statute” of coercion booms (not merely talks), it is power, raw naked power that is on the podium and who dares not listen? In fact the wiser, the more learned you are, the quieter you become. When guns boom.


When guns boom, that is might ‘manifesting.’ Overwhelming might, before whom or what nothing can stand, including law. Interestingly, both Might and Law share one characteristic – they are regulators.


They regulate differently though the Law expects to be obeyed. It doesn’t shout, it only exists. Its majesty is supposed to be self evident. Might is no way like that; it trumpets, sorry, it screams, it roars. It compels obedience on its own nasty terms of pain, agony and brutality, and is often swift. When guns boom.


Law involves the niceties of procedure to ensure the decency of legitimacy and satisfy the etiquettes of (legal) Justice. Of course with the Law on the throne, Right, as understood and accepted by Reason is Might.


The booming of guns finds the above very distasteful for it achieves its purpose in the fury of violence. A very rough situation it is, I tell you. When guns boom.


In such a situation, legality flows through the barrel of the gun. Law and her minions, automatically take a dive or as we say here in these shores, “run for cover.”


The fear or do I say respect or even reverence for “Rampaging Might,” I can authoritatively declare to you as the “First Gecko,” is the reason why some lawyers are not going for the Port-Harcourt Conference.


Such Lawyers strongly believe that Port-Harcourt has at least two Governors – Rotimi Amaechi and wait for this – KIDNAPPERS! They contend that Port-Harcourt is a place where guns are booming and as such, is a place where “Might is very much Right.”


A concerned colleague told me that since Kidnappers in Port-Harcourt could go after ‘allowee’ dependent Youth Corps members, it is too sure that they will be interested in snatching away Lawyers.


Now you wonder, if Nigerian lawyers are scared of attending their conference in Port-Harcourt and even more scared of visits to the Upper Reaches of the River Niger, then what can one expect of foreign investors, industrialists and tourists?


My take is that, the legal profession should be very concerned about the state of security in Nigeria, so that Law will not be silent.


Of course when the Law is silent in the face of booming guns, Lawyers too keep mum. And you know what that means. Lawyers go hungry, lose value…when guns boom.

WHY 'PARAPO' LAWYERS ASSOCIATIONS? By Adesina Ogunlana

The freedom of association is guaranteed and enshrined in the Constitution of Nigeria. So everybody is free to belong voluntarily to bodies of like-minded individuals.


Of course, humans are not lone rangers like snakes. Serpents enjoy the solitary existence, but not the Homo sapiens. The lone ranger is often viewed with suspicion and generally regarded as a bad or wicked type for the shared life, is the normal life in the society of men.


There are some legal restrictions however to the right of association. Generally the law frowns on people associating together for criminal or clandestine purposes.


But is it all that is lawful that is expedient? It was Paul the Great Apostle of the Christian faith that answered that question in the negative.


I am not always in tandem with the Pauline perspectives but on this score, I agree. Look at an association on Nigerian Lawyers, based strictly and only on ethnic (read tribal) basis. Only last week, I came across a group of lawyers. They were having a meeting and I simply found out that I couldn’t participate in their deliberations.


Were they massed together to discuss issues of law, or of the profession or of the Bar? Were they holding the meeting to discuss burning national issues?


I doubt very much. For if the answer was “Yes,” I surely would have been in a position to belong.


The fact however is that I simply could not or ever become a member. Yet I am a Nigerian citizen like them. Yet I am as educated as they are and share at least one profession (law) with them. Yet I know a number of them very well, in fact almost too well. In fact, they all shook hands with me while we exchanged pleasantries.


All these shared attributes however counted for nothing, because, they did not share ETHNICITY with me. They were Igbos while I am and still remain Yoruba.


Now interestingly it is not enough to be an Igbo person for you to qualify as a member of that particular group. If you an an Igbo but from Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu, will still fail to scale the membership hurdle.


Do you get my point at all? Our case in Nigeria, especially with the so called elites, the crème de la crème of society who pride themselves on self attributed ‘sophistication,’ education “enlightenment,” is sadly the case of taking an Indian from the bush and not taking the bush from the Indian.


My respective view is that if this our allegedly dear country will ever attain even half of its huge potentials then freedom from the shackles of ethnic or tribal aggregations, is one of the major battles that must be won.


The more we persist in thinking ‘tribe’ the less we must think of the Nation and transforming from being merely an aggregation of ethnicities.


Thinking ethnic, going ethnic and acting ethnic is cheap and a purported short cut for getting a good deal from the nation.


Artisans, farmers, drivers, rural folk and the uneducated mass may think ‘tribe’ but certainly not lawyers?


Pray, what is the meaning of “Kaduna State Lawyers,” “Oyo State Lawyers,” “Federal Capital Territory Lawyers,” “Ebonyi State Lawyers?” What do such bodies hope to achieve? Did any Nigerian Lawyer graduate from a state Law School?


Lawyers are the salt of the earth and must be the most progressive elements in their communities. But if we will organize based on tribal affiliations, it is simply too bad.


Is it not better to organize on moral, ethical or professional basis? We are in the new millennium, why still think with the mentality of pre-republican Nigeria?


A lawyer must be able to interact with his other colleagues and not be pushed away because he does not speak one tongue or the other.


Such realities are a shame.


‘Parapo’ lawyers’ associations, disband!