To survive in Nigeria’s legal profession these days, practitioners and judges require skills in the martial arts; nimbleness of feet on an Olympian scale; weapons handling; not to mention advanced training in subterfuge. Sadly, these are not offered on the curriculum of the Nigerian Law School nor in judicial orientation.
Even with these skills reinforced by a wing and a prayer, being connected with the business of the legal process in Nigeria today is often life endangering.
In August 2015, Nigeria’s State Security Service (SSS) announced that they had arrested members of a kidnapping syndicate who were about to abduct judges sitting on election petitions in Owerri, capital of Imo state. They named the leader of that syndicate as one Chibueze Henry, who went by the operational alias, Vampire. Charges followed against Vampire and his gang whose trial began in Owerri, the following year.
Now, the High Court in Owerri occupies a prominent piece of real estate, a shouting distance between the office of the State Governor and the headquarters of the Imo State Police Command. Entrance into the premises is controlled by gates, managed by security people who are public officials. In one of the court halls on this premises, the trial of Vampire and his gang was scheduled to continue on the morning of 27 January, 2017.
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2021 was a particularly bad year for lawyers around the country. The month after Omekagu’s murder in Orlu, Ajah Ogbonna Ajah and another of his colleagues, both lawyers, were killed on the road by unidentified gunmen while on their way to court in Abakaliki, the capital of Ebonyi State in south-east Nigeria.
They were by no means the only victims in the region or in the year. In May, former High Court judge, Stanley Nnaji, died, assassinated by unknown persons on the streets of Enugu State.
In November 2021, seven unidentified men macheted to death Kenechukwu Okeke, in Nkpor, in Anambra State. They killed him in the presence of his wife and young daughter. Okeke, a lawyer, had been outspoken in his support of Nigeria’s ban on Twitter.
These killings of lawyers, magistrates, and judges were not limited to South-East Nigeria. On 17 February, 2021, gunmen shot and killed Nkiru Agbasu, a pregnant lawyer, along the Warri-Sapele Road in Delta State.
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The killings and abductions of lawyers and judges recounted here are only a fraction of the story. Three things are clear about them.
First, the perpetrators nearly always get away with it. Second, any society that tolerates these kinds of attacks on its courts, judges, and lawyers is lawless. Third, the NBA does not yet have a focused program for ensuring accountability for these attacks on lawyers and judges. That is the first thing that needs to change.
https://punchng.com/counting-the-kidnapped-and-the-killed-among-nigerias-judges-lawyers/
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