"Squib and Her "Customers"' By Adesina Ogunlana

http://www.squibcoverstory.blogspot.com/2011/11/federal-high-court-ikeja-rotten.html





Since inception in March 2001 the Squib has known five Chief Judges of the Lagos State High Court. Our very first “customer” was Christopher Segun J. the Squib was in its earliest infancy then, merely a four-page sheet, selling for, was not just N20? It would’t be a surprise if when Segun left office in May 2001, he never heard of or cared much about the Squib.


Our second “customer” Ibitola Sotiminu J. (2001 to 2004) turned out to be a god-sent promoter for the Squib. This honourable Chief came to power May 2001 and by September of that same year had become very uncomfortable with us. Our searching, investigative range and the scorching reportorial style, not to talk of our irreverent and defiant posture greatly irked this Chief Judge who vowed that the Squib must be squashed at all cost.


This resolve manifested in the ban of the sale of the Squib in the premises of Lagos State Courts. ( Pls click link below to read)


http://adesinaogunlana.blogspot.com/2007/12/lawyer-takes-on-lagos-judiciary.html
 

The numerous police arrests and detentions of the Squib vendors and finally the laying of a complaint against the First Gecko, Editor of the magazine for “professional misconduct as a lawyer” before the Nigerian Bar Association, which by special arrangement found merit in the spurious allegations and referred the First Gecko for trial before the Disciplinary Committee of the Body of Benchers. The said trial lasted from 2003 to 2009 before it fizzled out, even though it never actually got started despite several appearances of the First Gecko and his mighty defence shield, the venerable Daddy 3. [more on daddy 3 in brackets below]

(http://learnedsquib.blogspot.com/2008/01/memoirs-of-daddy-3-by-adesina-ogunlana_15.html)


Our third “customer” was Fatai Adeyinka J. he came to power as honourable Chief Judge in April 2004 and left in August of the same year. He inherited a full blown war of the Lagos State Judiciary with the Squib but the man simply lacked the will to join the fray.


The third customer just kept his peace and buried his head while the Squib was peppering him over all manner of revelations of corrupt dealings of his administration.


Our fourth “customer” and so far the longest reigning, was Augustine Adetula Alabi a.k.a Ade Alabi (2004 – 2009). At first Alabi wanted peace with the Squib but on the condition that the Squib should compromise her editorial thrust and range. It was a desire that could not meet with any satisfaction or success.


Deceptively amiable, even affable, the 4th customer was not comfortable with the Squib’s unrepentant, trenchant penchant for calling a spade just that. And after two years of stomaching the Squib’s ‘wahala,’ the now best forgotten Chief Judge rose up to the challenge of continuing the war that Sotuminu J. started against us. However, try as much as he did, in collaboration with Dele-Oye of the Oceanicbankceciliaibru fame, the First Gecko’s prosecutor before the Disciplinary Committee, Alabi who is reportedly now a big-time hotelier in is Ido-Ani province of Ondo State, failed woefully to overpower the Squib. He left the throne with the distasteful reputation of a smelly banger among many Lagos Judiciary workers!


Our fifth “customer” is Inumidun Akande J. this is one Chief Judge who has turned a huge surprise to many people. As a judge, Akande was ordinary. But as Chief Judge, she has turned something else. Positively something else. She has become extra-ordinary. But that’s a story for another day, for fuller telling.


In our interactions with her administration, we found out that, she is accessible and genuinely respects what we stand for – responsible conduct in the Bar and on the Bench. I suspect that her identification with the Squib is because she is a kindred spirit – a boat rocker, if not necessarily a radical albeit mellowed by age and structured by a civil service career life.


This fifth customer is far, by far different from her four predecessors. So if we don’t fight her, it is because she has given us no platform to direct fire at her position.


Respect begets respect. There has been no time the Squib complains to the 5th customer that she ignores it. Now that’s very important and smart, not seeing the Squib as foe but treating her as a partner in progress, even though the Squib’s agitational journalism gives her the occasional shakes too.


I believe that by the time this edition hits the stands, the Lagos State Judiciary’s cheque or draft for one Mr. Omoniyi Falaiye would have reached him or his counsel.


Oh, I have lost you? Who is Omoniyi Falaiye and what’s the relevance of bring him into the picture?


One day the First Gecko will speak about him and why the 5th customer, if her ladyship does not change, will not join the leagues of leagues of former Chief Judges who cannot stroll in, into their former ‘empires’ at will, after retirement.


Eni se rere


Ko ma se lo


Eni se ka


Ko ma se bo


Ati re, ati ika


Ikan ki gbe!



http://www.adesinaogunlana.blogspot.com/2007/12/playing-abacha-tyrant.html

'A Lesson From Agbako' By Adesina Ogunlana

A few weeks ago we learnt from the newspapers of an interesting but tragic drama at the election petition case of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) against the President Goodluck “I am not a lion” Jonathan.


According to the papers the counsel to the CPC led two of his witnesses in evidence and had them cross-examined. The first witness was the chairman of the CPC. The second was the General Secretary.


As we all know, since 2007, the front loading of evidence method has been applied to election petition cases. With this method, a witness does not give oral evidence in court – his story would have been written down in a sworn deposition and submitted to the court and the adverse party.


The witness only need adopt the sworn deposition at trial as his document and presto, his examination-in-chief finishes. What follows is the cross-examination.


According to the papers, the statement adopted by the Chairman as his was actually the Secretary’s while the statement adopted by the Secretary as his was actually authored by the chairman.


These statements had been tendered and cross-examination had started in earnest when the CPC counsel realized the serious mix-up.


At this stage, counsel to the CPC applied for a withdrawal of the two documents tendered mistakenly through wrong persons.


Up sprang Chief Wole Olanipekun S.A.N the counsel to President Jonathan in opposition to the CPC application. The tribunal ruled in favour of Olanipekun.


I wondered at a lot of things in the above narrated case. One, why and how did the counsel to the CPC make the mistake of presenting wrong documents to wrong witnesses?


Two, why did the Chairman and the Secretary of the CPC “blindly” adopt statements not of their making?


Three,why did Chief Olanipekun oppose the application of the CPC to mend the regrettable error that had occurred? Could it be because the learned silk is merely a S.A.N (Senior Advocate of Nigeria awardee) and not a B.P.A (Best Practices Advocate awardee).


Four, why did the court reject the application of the C.P.C? Is that stance promotional of real justice in the case, or is it that the laws of evidence in Nigeria and the rules are rigid and inexorably so, like the laws of the Medes and Persia?


Five, would it not have been much more honourable and in accordance with the ethics of our much touted “noble profession” for President Jonathan’s lawyers not to oppose the C.P.C’s lawyer’s application since the factor of pure human error and inadvertence was at work?


Thinking about this case, reminded me of an incident in the famous Yoruba Classic, Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irumale by D.O. Fagunwa. In that story, Akara-Ogun the hero/protagonist,a doughty hunter was in a sure do or die wrestling contest with a fierce daemon ; Agbako (Calamity).


In the heat of the violent confrontation and much to his dismay, Akara-Ogun had his fighting hand or the very cutlass cut into two. Surely that was the end?


No! for Agbako merely took up the severed part, spat on it and joined it to the remainder and immediately both parts became whole again! ‘Now let’s continue the fight,’ said Agbako.


If, and I say so again, if a daemon could be so chivalrous in dire battle, why was such a height unattainable by Chief Wole Olanipekun S.A.N and his other colleagues, all believed in and paraded about in many quarters as about the best crop of Nigerian lawyers of this era, in the matter in question?