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!