ABUJA — Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Dahiru Musdapher,
yesterday, relinquished his position as Chairman of the Nigerian Body of
Benchers, even as Chief Idowu Sofola, SAN, has been elected to succeed
him and pilot the affairs of the body for the next one year.
Statutorily, the Body of Benchers is the highest judicial organ with
the responsibility of regulating legal practice in the country as well
as admitting any person who wants to become a legal practitioner into
the Nigerian Bar.
Meantime, a female Justice of the Supreme Court who is the likely
successor to the CJN, Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, was yesterday
elected as Vice-Chairman of the legal body.
The election which took place at the Supreme Court was chaired by the
CJN and supervised by National President of the Nigerian Bar
Association, NBA, Chief Joseph Daudu (SAN) and Mr Okey Wali (SAN).
In his acceptance speech, Sofola, who is the first African to be
elected as Secretary General of the International Bar Association (IBA),
expressed gratitude to former NBA President, Chief Wole Olanipekun,
SAN, who he said “kept renewing my membership until I became a Life
Bencher.”
Canvassing support from members of the body, Sofola said: “The need
for the significant review of the legal profession and all its
institutions is imperative.”
He said it was to this end that the Elder’s Committee was inaugurated
to review the functions of all legal institutions, regretting that
since its creation, the committee is yet to assert its authority.
The new Body of Benchers chairman further emphasized the need to
strengthen the powers of the Legal Practitioner Disciplinary Committee
(LSDPC).
He said: “The LSDPC should be extended so that the committee will be
able to cope with the volume of petitions it gets. At the moment, the
Disciplinary Committee appears limited to abuse of professional ethics.
What of cases of lawyers guilty of corruption in politics? Shouldn’t we
look for a way to address this? If we successfully do self-cleansing, I
mean lawyers in practice, what of lawyers that are not in practice? If
their excesses are not checked, it could affect the integrity of the
legal profession.
“The legal profession must lead the way in societal re-engineering.
We, as the conscience of the Bar, must not fail in this onerous task. We
need to find sterner penalties for erring members of the profession who
are guilty of infamous conduct.
“We must hold all members of the profession to a strict moral code so
that the legal profession will retain its pride of place in the
society.”
