His Lordship as women Judges in Nigeria are loathe to bear “Her Ladyship” That the men may appear before them and ‘romanticize’ it, as “My Lady” with a contemptuous/insulting undertone often embarrass them and rather than send those men to jail for contempt of court, Nigerian female Judges prefer the address mode “His Lordship”. Absurd! Whilst human rights activists suggest the pronoun “Her Lordship” some proposed “Her Honour” and by the way that is how we address the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America and other Justices as “your honor”. Please give us a law to address all Judges from the High Court in Nigeria upto the Supreme Court as “His Honour” or “Her Honour” and for the Magistrate Courts, “Her or His Magistracy” or simply “Sir or Ma’am”.
SAN
It has happened before in England and Wales, where the practice was taken from in 2003 and 2004 the award of Q.C., was suspended due to public outcry as we now have in Nigeria against SAN for different reasons. Please Mr President pending the passing of legislation to scrap, abolish or ban the rank of SAN, from now on, your Federal executive council which has some statutory regulatory powers as you can see from section 5(7) of the Legal Practitioners Act hereunder reproduced, could in conjunction with the LPPC suspend this rank for now for obvious reasons. In America there is no Q.C., or its equivalent. In neighbouring Ghana there is no Q.C. or its equivalent and several countries too numerous to list.
s5(7) LPA: “The Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee may, with the approval of the National Council of Ministers, make rules as to the privileges to be accorded to Senior Advocates of Nigeria, as to the functions of a legal practitioner, which are not to be performed by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, as to the mode of appearance before courts by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, and generally, but without prejudice to the foregoing, for ensuring the dignity of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria.”
Originally it was meant to protect and promote junior lawyers which is why a Q.C. must appear with a junior in any case s/he conducts and there is a fee formula the junior gets 1/3rd of the fees. All those $21 million some 3 or 4 SANs in Nigeria earned from Halliburton and Siemens, some $7million ought to have gone to juniors and if that occurred we would have less impoverished juniors. It is common nowadays one lawyer Fidelis Udowana died in Lagos 2015 needed only N45,000= for surgery, couldn’t afford it.
The NBA Lagos Branch scribe passed after his car had an accident on his way to the national executive committee meeting in Ekiti, police and road safety took custody of the car, he needed money to get it out plus his medics which should come to about a hundred thousand Naira No help!. What of Akinbote Esq former NBA Lagos scribe died from want of care. A number, also Ms Felicia was former NBA Lagos scribe, cancer struck!
Governorship tussle Akwa Ibom, Abia and Rivers State. One SAN took the brief of Abia State Governor, PDP and Rivers State PDP and argued one position of the law ie card readers not being a statutory requirement. The same SAN took the brief of APC/Umana Akwa Ibom and argued the exact opposite and lost; two conflicting positions taken contemporaneously.
Many work hands sore others do less work. During the tenure of office of AGF Adoke SAN. INEC, AGF, Zinox etc were sued by Bedding Holdings Ltd. the plaintiff got the order of Auta CJ FHC Abuja restraining INEC from conducting voters registration exercise, plaintiff claimed patent rights. I, was the counsel who in December 2010 vacated those court orders that paved way for our democracy to thrive. Click http://www.nigerianbestforum.com/generaltopics/ddc-machines-contract-court-vacates-interim-order/
Whilst AGF Adoke SAN was paying millions dollars to a few others on Halliburton plea bargain, I received no fees at all yet did more work. Unfair!
In 2008-2012, I began the struggle against Governors tenure elongation; my legal pontification was vindicated by the Supreme Court. Please see the Vanguard. Another SAN who had access to the former President Jonathan went and took a national award that I had worked for and earned. How many of these SANs nowadays pontificate any laws?. We had the FRAs, RF-Kayode, GCM Onyuikes, the Mudiagha Odjes SAN our Idols. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/02/tenure-elongation-judgment-ll-deepen-our-democracy-carol-ajie/
Our Idols, the first generation Senior Advocates of Nigeria are all gone.
Kindly let the suffix SAN being mis-used presently, go with the winds!