The NBA President YC Maikyau SAN has condemned the silence of the Body of Benchers to the scandalous contents of the email sent by an former partner in the law firm of the BoB Chairman, Ms Adekunbi Ogunde claiming among other things that the BoB Chairman, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN uses his office to influence judges throughout the country and obtain favorable judgements on behalf of its clients.

Ms Ogunde in the infamous email to SAIPEM, an expatriate company, had boasted that the BoB Chairman can influence Judges using his position and had in fact done the same thing for some of its clients.

 

The immediate past President of the NBA, Olumide Akpata, who had  asked Chief Olanipekun to recuse himself from the Chairmanship of the BoB to restore confidence in the body but the request was rebuffed by the body who kept mum over the letter.

 

 

There is no gain-saying that this email has brutally hurt the legal profession; it made a caricature of the Nigerian Court system and brought the entire legal profession to abject disrepute. It is disgusting! That this lie was told and allowed to be fed to Nigerians is the greatest assault on our collective psyche. Why then do we go to Court if this was true? Of course, this is not who we are, but we would appear to celebrate the content of the email by our silence and the insistence by the Chairman to continue to preside over the affairs of this Body without any remorse whatsoever over the embarrassment which the entire legal profession is subjected to on account of the content of that email.

10. What is even more worrisome is the fact that, this Body did not in any way react to the email to demonstrate to Nigerians, that what was said of the Body and the entire profession was false and that the legal profession cannot be manipulated by the Chairman, or any other individual or group of persons. Interestingly, there was no denial that the said email was indeed written, and whether the content of the email was authorised or not is immaterial to the impression created by its content. The only way this Body can demonstrate that it “consists of men of the highest distinction in the legal profession” is to come out and speak boldly against that negative narrative and refuse to celebrate it in anyway under any guise.