Apo-six lawyer decries continuous decaying legal profession
By Abba – Eku Onyeka, Abuja
The lawyer who won the case of the gruesome killing of six Igbo youths by the police in 2005 in Apo, Abuja, Barr Amobi Nzelu has decried the continuous decaying of the legal profession in Nigeria.
Nzelu, the principal partner, Amobi Nzelu & Co spoke to our correspondent recently in his chamber in Abuja, having been practicing for four decades.
Making his point, he said: “July last year, I turned 40 years in the bar and when we were rolled in 1980, my number was 4029. But today, it is getting to 500,000 lawyers. The course content then was so deep, that if you come out as a lawyer, people respect you. But when they began to chunk out lawyers in commercial quantity, universities that were not prepared to offer law are now offering law courses; faculties of law understaffed; lecturers not groomed properly to take up the challenges of teaching them proper law; the system started to dwindle. If you tell somebody that you are a lawyer, he won’t believe you.
“We are the orthodox lawyers; we represent the profession. I finished in 1999 and was called in 1980. Before the end of a decade, …. But today, every lawyer is on the fast lane to make it and the integrity of the profession is being eroded. It is unfortunate that the profession that is shielding the public is now betraying them. You give a lawyer a brief, he may or may not compromise you and it s worrisome. In this profession, at 20, you eat your breakfast; at 40, you eat lunch and at 60, your dinner. I have eaten my breakfast and lunch and it remains my dinner.”
Attributing the whole thing to greed and impatience, as well as the removal of the Decree that made it compulsory for a lawyer to practice under somebody for about five years before opening a chamber, he advised the younger ones to go about the profession with diligence, commitment and devotion.
Speaking on the judiciary, Amobi Nzelu said that the executive arm of the government has made the judiciary to depend on them for survival. This he faulted in its entirety, saying that it is undemocratic.
Asked if the judiciary is still he last hope of the common man, considering the exorbitant fees lawyers charge, he said that the lawyers go to the same market with the senators who receive about N15 million monthly. To this, he defended lawyers. Amobi Nzelu when pressed further blamed Nigerians for the alleged taking of bribe by the judges, saying that they are the ones who allegedly give the bribe.
Raising alarm at the number of cartel that surrounds Mr President, he advised him to hive appointment across board.
