It was a night to remember. The venue was the Vintano Hotel, if you ask me, a Ritz Carlton or a version of it in upscale Lekki, Nigeria. For three nights and four days, beginning from Thursday last week (22nd August) and ending yesterday, Sunday, 25th August, the University of Nigeria Enugu Campus Law Class of 1989 held sway in the hotel with their spouses and children.

The high point of this year’s annual convention of the Class was the dinner night that took place from about 7 pm on Saturday and lasted until the wee hours of Sunday morning.

Before then the Class had several other activities from Thursday evening to Saturday afternoon. A welcome party at the rooftop of the hotel on Thursday evening, an Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Friday, which included the election of a new executive which saw Chief Ike Onwuchuluba emerge as the new National President of the Class. The outgoing National President, Hon. Paul Awoyesuku, chaired the meeting.

Chief Ike Onwuchuluba, Justice Pete Obiora and Mr Femi Falana

The Class also elected a Board of Trustees for the purpose of registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission. The BOT, according to the outgoing NP, was not imbued with any executive powers under the constitution of the Class but may act in an advisory capacity. The BOT will be chaired by Hon. Justice Pete Obiorah JCA.

While the Class meeting was going on, the spouses went to do charity work. It has become a tradition of the Class and an important item on their annual programme. The spouses donated food and other items worth hundreds of thousands of Naira to motherless babies’ homes.

One programme had members sit down to a health talk by one Mr. Charles Oguike, a nutritionist. He lectured on the foods to avoid. The central point was moderation, paying attention to one’s specific body requirements.

There was also an outing at Atican Beach – surfing, horse-riding and dancing. No doubt the women and children enjoyed it.

The climax of the four-day convention, the law dinner on Saturday, was preceded by a photo session. The mates alone, the spouses alone, the mates, spouses and the children together – these were the official order of photographs, apart from individual sessions of different combinations. The male mates were in black tuxedos, their female counterparts in black flowing dinner gowns, with emerald green shawls over their shoulders, the same colour of dinner gowns worn by the female spouses. Each of the females – mates and spouses alike – shone in her resplendent gown, some in twinkling shines. The children were not left out.

The dinner was chaired by Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN. His witty humour enlivened the atmosphere. He noted that the Class has four SANs, two before and two to be sworn into the Body of Senior Advocates on 30th September, but that he expects as many as ten more within the next few years. There is a serving Justice of the Court of Appeal and several High Court Judges and Magistrates. There are also several other mates making waves in other areas of endeavour, including in business.

After the Chairman’s opening remarks the Coordinator of the Lagos Chapter of the Class, Mr. Emeka Opara, delivered his welcome address which he titled “The Burden of Certainty and the Joy of Visitation” in which he thanked the guests and his mates and likened the joy of the Lagos Chapter at the occasion to the joy of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation.

Hon. Paul Awoyesuku delivered his “State of the Class Address” with the theme, “Soaring to Greater Heights”. He started with faith, which he said has brought back the Class together in this 12th Convention after the hiatus brought about by COVID-19 and the economic downturn that Nigeria has experienced since then. He appreciated the Local Organizing Committee that planned and executed the convention, and the several mates both in Nigeria and the diaspora that facilitated it. He listed the achievements of his executive and the good things that happened to the class in his tenure.

The new executive led by Chief Ike Onwuchuluba was sworn in.

Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, the guest speaker, came in slightly late. The Chairman had promised the audience that Mr. Falana’s speech would not be short of enthralling even if he came late. Mr. Falana did not disappoint, as he held the audience rapt in attention, sometimes erupting in thunderous ovation as he navigated his speech without for once looking at any paper.

In his speech which loosely centred on “The Impact of the Supreme Court Decision on Local Government Autonomy on the Nigerian Federal Structure”, Mr. Falana started by wondering why the people of the South West and the South East of Nigeria were always paying more attention to the work of ethnic irredentists like the group that gave the recent quit notice to Igbo people to leave Yorubaland instead of the positive stories of cooperation and sacrifice like the Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi/Colonel Fajuyi story and the Otunba Subomi Balogun/Dr. Alex Ekwueme story concerning the registration of FCMB.

According to Falana, why should people, instead of going to court to challenge the very unconstitutional and brazen prevention of themselves from voting in Lagos by hired thugs and agberos resign to “leaving it to God”? God is too busy to do our work for us, he said.

He mentioned the instances when he, Falana, as a young lawyer, was sent by the Late Alao Aka-Bashorun to go to defend students union leaders (Late Chima Ubani and his comrades) of the University of Nigeria both when they were detained by the Babangida regime and when the same regime influenced then Vice Chancellor of UNN, Professor Chimere Ikokwu, a students leader in his own days, to rusticate Chima Ubani and his colleagues. These are positive stories to be highlighted by both sides of the River Niger, while there should be cooperation in tackling the agberos recruited by politicians to divide the people.

The great speaker eventually came down to the political economy of Nigeria, tracing the history of mismanagement of resources by both federal and state governments especially from the Ibrahim Babangida era. He referred to the several economic programmes imposed by the IMF and World Bank over the decades. Why are Nigerians getting poorer whilst money is being pumped to state governments, he asked, almost rhetorically, mentioning humongous amounts shared by state governments just in the past few months.

The judiciary was not spared. “The Supreme Court is now the Supreme Court of the government in power.” According to the Learned Senior Advocate, the Supreme Court has no legislative powers. The Justices of the Supreme Court cannot rewrite the provisions of the constitution. He took umbrage at the recent judgement of the Supreme Court on Local Government allocations. It was legislation by the Supreme Court, he said.

The legal luminary took some questions and proffered answers at a Q & A Session. Twice, once after his speech and once after his answers to the questions, he was given a standing ovation.

On legal practice, he said that it has to be expanded for lawyers to be properly so called, noting that lawyers must demand for the right things to be done. He noted that there are certain things that can and should be done that would ultimately create jobs for young lawyers. He noted that about 2,100 people were arrested by security agencies as a result of the recent #EndBadGovernance Protests, and that many of them (about two-thirds) are still languishing in detention, almost forgotten with no searchlight by the media on the issue.

He echoed the Chairman’s earlier remarks, made when he was not yet at the venue, that the UNEC 1989 Law Class need and deserve more SANs. He extolled the two SAN-designates of the Class, Mr. Edwin Anikwem and Dr. Monday Ubani, and told the Class to gear up for more.

The dinner ended with a closing prayer led by a member of the Class, Professor Rev. Fr. Edwin Ezike, who happens to teach at their alma mata, the Law Faculty of the University of Nigeria Enugu Campus.