Barrister Johnson Odion Esezoobo
Years ago, there was a crisis that rocked a Union of Commercial Drivers in my Local Government Area who took themselves to Court. A leader of one of the factions had just stepped out of a buka where he just had pounded yam with bush meat. With a took pick in his mouth he was walking toward his vehicle when the bailiff delivered to him a Court Summons. He trembled, so much that the took pick dropped from his mouth. The rest of what happened is story for another day.
Similarly, a lady Principal of one of the Schools in Edo State was served a divorce process by the husband. She got so worried that she packed up her stuff and left the school immediately for that day as she could not concentrate any more to do anything meaningful. That means that unless there was a competent deputy who would hold forth and manage the activities for the day, the students were likely to be affected adversely for that day, just as the nation or a State will be affected adversely by whatever disturbed state of the head is in like is happening currently in Ondo State.
The most interesting of the series of these encounters was in 1997. I got to the office at about 8 am to find that the ex-Director/Chief Executive of a Federal Government Organization where I worked for a few years and got dismissed waiting for me by the gate. We went into the office together. My staff had hardly stepped out after our morning prayer when this old man went on his knees saying, “Thank God Mr. Esezoobo, I can still reach you… Please save me…”. It was so odd, an old man, and a former boss, to kneel down to talk to me. I turned my back to him and said, “Sir, I will listen to you only if your sit to talk to me”. This man had hardly returned to his seat when he went down the second time. And I repeated what I said earlier. Then he said in a visibly trembling tone, “I got here by 6.30am to trap you in case you might be going to Court…”.
The man may have been speaking from guilt when he falling on his knees to talk to a small me: he was instrumental to my aforementioned dismissed from service. But he did not know that Johnson Odion Esezoobo has no place in his heart for any grudge or bitterness but only for forgiveness and love.
But what was his problem that brought him to my office by 6.30am? He had just received a letter from a lawyer threatening to take him before the defunct Failed Banks Tribunal for a debt of about N450,000.00 he was owing one of the Banks. The old man who was almost going down on his knees the third time got revived when I told him that he couldn’t be taken to the Tribunal because “The Bank is not a Failed Banks Tribunal”.
To God be the glory, we were able to solve the problem.
1. Significance Of The Tooth Pick Story.
The above stories are to emphasize the potency of a Court Process, even a mere letter of threat from a lawyer in the early times. It is to emphasize the weight and the strength that these documents used to bear on the humans afortiori the society until we Lawyers/Judges messed up the process.
Sir/Ma, I am not talking of the pronouncements or judgment or Order of a Court, but just the Court process or a letter from a lawyer. But from our foibles that we call legal practice, which is now conducted at a base level, we devalued the potent process such that neither of the two, even judgment or order, is now accorded the respect that is ordinarily due it. Just as touts at motor parks, or political thugs, even among the political elite or educated elite, it has become a commonplace for one to slap the other or a and grabber can walk into another’s land and say “Go to Court, I will meet you there”, so come lawyers some lawyers step out from Election Tribunal proceeding to talk boastfully to the Press on the television.
2. Emerging Regime Of Outrageous Cost Against A Counsel Obnoxious. It is against the foregoing that I like to draw attention to the emerging regime of the Supreme Court’s award of outrageous costs against a party or a Counsel in any case. It is a regime that will not do the Bar and the Bench, both of whom are supposed to be partners in progress in the administration of justice for the benefit of the society, any good. It is regrettable, indeed highly condemnable for any lawyer to engage in filing frivolous processes. Court is a serious business that should be taken up seriously. If any lawyer treats it otherwise, the Court should be seen to addressing the matter with a view to correcting it not necessarily by way of a punishment.
It is therefore, more regrettable, equally condemnable that the apex Court will see an award of costs or punitive costs against Counsel as the solution to the problem which the Court has hitherto lamented in several of its decisions even though in strict terms, the Court is itself part of the problem.
3. Award Of A Punitive Cost As A Breach Of Judicial Oath. Analytically, an award of punitive costs against Counsel is empirical proof of ‘ill-will’ in the exercise of judicial powers against which the Judge took an Oath. Any doubt about this is pulverized by the Court’s remark during the proceeding that the learned Professor, Chief and SAN who is always all over the place, was out to “demonize the court”. So, it is breach of the judicial oath subscribed to by the Justices of the apex Court to respond to the alleged attempt to demonize the Court by the prominent Counsel.
Not only is a breach of the judicial oath, it is also a manifestation of uncontrollable anger and bitterness which is unexpected of any judicial officer. It is a wrong pace set setter for the lower rung of the judicial ladder who will likely latch on it to engage on judicial high handedness. And this will spread to the lesser beings in the administration and enforcement of law such as the Police, Federal Road Safety, LASTMA e.t.c.
4. Against The Provision That Enjoins Humane Governmental Actions. The strength of the Supreme Court or any other Court at that whose pronouncements are expected to be corrective does not lie in the severity of the punishment it can administer through award of outrageous costs against a Counsel, not even a party, but in the adoption of a civilized approach to resolving problems. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that enjoins ‘governmental actions to be humane’ cannot have contemplated that judicial actions which are an integral part of ‘governmental actions’ being an act of judicial governance, should be high handed or less than humane.
5. Evidence Of Derailment From The Due Process In Our Society: Since the return of democracy in Nigeria over two decades now, it has not been easy to disengage ourselves from the derailment that we allowed the military to take us through. An award of a punitive cost against a Counsel, even a party is a product of the derailment at the judicial level. But as experience has shown, and is evident, military style of governance which introduced firing squad and or manner of highhanded punishments with a view to checking the menace, did not check such menace. Armed robbery and other new violent crimes like banditry and other vices have over time overtaking the measures though to be the way out.
6. As A Demonstration Of An Unwholesome Unanimity In Wrong Doing. As pointed out above, it is not difficult to discern that the cost of N40 million or N10 million against Prof. Mike Ozekhome (SAN) flowed from the Court’s feeling of ill-will from its conclusion that the learned Chief, Professor and SAN set out to demonize the Court.
What is worrisome is that a panel of five Justices of the apex Court who occupy the position of God, and must be seen to be exhibiting a high degree of godly attributes or attributes of God in whose name they swore saying “So, help me God,” was unanimous in making the award of cost. This amounts to unanimity in wrong doing. This is totally objectionable; that no single one of them could sound a caution.
On the principle that it is not a light thing to rise from through the lower rung up to the highest judicial level of the nation, it is not too much to expect that the panel could have demonstrated a less degree of revulsion in dealing with the matter, After all, what is it?, Filing of a frivolous process which is not as serious as when one Duru said in the open Court, while Uwais CJN was presiding in the famous Honda Place case that some Justices had been compromised.
Honourable Justice Uwais was not in any way demeaned, neither diminished by his otherwise casual response to such an irresponsible accusation by a lawyer in the open Court before the Justices. The learned former Chief Justice of Nigeria remains tall by the fact that he showed humanness to the culprit by merely remonstrating against him in love for that uncouth act as God would. This unanimity in wrong doing is a serious threat to the administration of justice in Nigeria.
7. Proposed Appropriate Disciplinary Process. Ordinarily, it is an act of professional misconduct for a lawyer to file a frivolous process before a Court of law. Any lawyer who is worth his salt, who is values his integrity will not for any reason file a frivolous process in any Court in Nigeria such as the Court has continually condemned in the perpetration of ex-parte motions/orders. What then should be the appropriate response? The right punishment is to refer such mis-conduct to the disciplinary committee of the Bar. In early times, a threat in such words as “I have the good mind of referring you to the Disciplinary Committee…” was a great caution; you see the lawyer trembling and effusively saying “My Lord, I am sorry… My Lord, I sincerely apologise”. But award N100million against a lawyer particularly of the class that has so far been identified, they will pay the cost without having to go to their Banks or reaching home first.
8. The need for caution
From several judicial authorities of our Superior Court which posit that a Court is expected “to be discerning”, the apex Court ought to know that an award of costs or punitive costs against Counsel will compound the problem rather than solve it. The reason is that this rather offending practice is found more among senior Counsel the Senior Advocates of Nigeria. Let it be emphasized that by this emerging regime, the apex Court is not setting a good example for the lower Courts, not even for lesser beings in the administrative and executive sectors of the nation’s administrative process.
In a perverse country where many lawyers have taken to showing their prowess trying to impress their clients, take to addressing the press as soon as they step out of Court, the build-up of the Judge’s ill-will in the exercise of judicial powers will soon become part of administration of justice.
Recently, Honourable Justice Ekwo of the Federal High Court awarded N25 million against a Counsel. I do not know what has happened to my friend, the lawyer having not heard from him ever since.
Notably, it was Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), and now Chief (Prof) Mike Ozekhome (SAN). There is none of these prominent legal practitioners the tooth pick will fall from the mouth or lose sleep just because of an award of a cost of N10 million or N40 million against. Each of them can transfer the money from the phones they are holding. If they cannot for whatever reason, their clients can pay the cost even right there in the Court premises without having to go to their cars. But award a cost of N50, 000.00 (Fifty Thousand Naira Only) against Esezoobo today, good luck to him if he had hard his dinner; only the took pick will drop. If he is yet to have his dinner, the appetite will disappear, and with it goes his sleep. And where will the Supreme Court be sending him with this? Death. And nobody is going to hold any valedictory session for him, he not being a Senior Advocate of Nigeria qualified for a valedictory session.
It is for the foregoing that I admonish the Apex Court to discontinue forthwith this obnoxious emerging practice and allow the common man for whom the Court is said to be last hope to breath too.
Barrister Johnson Odion Esezoobo Can Be Reach Via -: +234 803 320 0595
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