By Anthony S. Aladekomo

In these days when showmanship has become a vogue, especially on the social media, lawyers have sometimes not been an exemption, unfortunately, even when convention demands such an exception. By virtue of their profession, all lawyers are writers in one way or other. If he is not an academic article writer, he may be a non-academic article writer. If he is none of both, he may be a brief writer. If he is none of all such, he will be a real property documenter. There is a particular usual error in writing on the part of non-academic article writers and even some academic writers in Nigeria today that this write-up seeks to correct.

Lawyers who are academic or non-academic article writers have a duty to conform to the conventions that guide writing an article or a book. Your name should normally appear under the title of your article or book. However, it is erroneous or wrong to pad your name at that place with your academic, professional or national qualifications or awards. It is common among Nigerian legal article writers to pad their names under the title of their articles with such degrees, qualifications and awards as LL.B., BL, LL.M., PhD, Notary Public, FIArb, SAN, OFR, CON, GCFRN. All such suffices and epithets are unnecessary, superfluous and unconventional. Even this writer committed such an error in his first three books, but we are all still learning and should not shying away from upgrading when the need arises. The time of ignorance is forgivable, but there is no point continuing the unconventional practice after being notified of it.

We need to desist from such a writing style for two reasons. The first reason is simply that it is unconventional. If we are part of the global village, we have got to conform to its conventions and ethos, lest we should be taunted with ignorance in the other quarters of the globalised world. We cannot be an island unto ourselves. If we have been observant, we would notice that Nigerian world-class conventional newspaper article writers like Farooq Kperogi, Lasisi Olagunju, Okey Ndibe and Chidi Odinkalu (who is a lawyer) never pad their names with their degrees, qualifications and awards, not even with Professor or Doctor in their articles, even when each of them is a PhD holder or a professor. Similarly, have you ever seen the names of world-class authors of law books or even non-law books padded with their degrees, qualifications and awards at the front of their books? For example, Malcolm N. Shaw’s International Law or R. W. M. Dias’ Jurisprudence?

The second reason why lawyers who commit the error should desist from it is that the unconventional writing style indicates pride in the writer. In other words, it is unethical. Yes, not just God detests pride; the secular society does and the academia does. A portion of page 171 of Basic Concepts in Legal Research Methodology, a book written by my learned Justice (Professor) Adewale Taiwo, will drive home the point being made here. It says: “A researcher should avoid arrogance in his research. You should avoid words which depict arrogance on your part.” This same ethic and convention explain why even most of the people who are professors, doctors, pastors and imams do not use such titles as prefixes in their Facebook and other social media accounts. There is a rebuttable presumption that you are proud if you do that.

Yet, it is neither offensive nor unethical to endorse a brief profile or citation of yourself in your article, book or write-up. It is an acceptable practice, but it must be done at the right place. For a book, the proper place to place your profile or citation is under the About the Author. For an academic article, the proper place is the footnote under your abstract. For a non-academic article for a newspaper or a blog, the proper place is the end of the article. It can be something like: “Aladekomo, LL.B., is a So-so city-based teacher/legal practitioner/notary public.”

Aladekomo is a law teacher.