Jiti Ogunye

Nigerians, this week, were vociferous in their condemnation of the way lawyers allegedly stole phones, snatched bags, threw chairs and fought at the just concluded Nigerian Bar Association Conference in Lagos. Also, a lawyer, Mr Jiti Ogunye, has waxed a poem condemning the way some of his colleagues, versed in the fine letters of Jurisprudence, (especially the proper application and role of law in society), behaved.

That was why Olumide Akpata, the outgoing Nigeria Bar Association President,  said that any lawyer “found complicit in the vandalisation of conference booths, theft of phones, and assault on officials will be prosecuted.”

Watch the video:

Here is Jiti Ogunye’s poem:

Rogues in Robes

Bags our colleagues stole

Phones our colleagues stole

On staff, they rained blows

They are rogues in lawyers’ robes.

Acts were caught in videos

Preserved in digital troves

The culprits shall soon be known

They are rogues in lawyers’ robes.

We shall set up a probe

Turned shall be every stone

The guilty shall be exposed

They are rogues in lawyers’ robes.

Unpunished no one shall go

To book we shall bring these blokes

The black book shall we unfold

They are rogues In lawyers’ robes.

I say they snatched many phones

Aside, the staff they shoved

Destroyed property of the host

They are rogues in lawyers’ robes.

Donned their suits and coats

With silky ties, some ties, bow

Shoes, polished, and they shone

But they are rogues in lawyers’ robes.

Professional ethics code

Conducts like these erode

Chairs and tables they broke

These are rogues in lawyers robes.

This year, three decades ago

In Port Harcourt there was a big row

The Bar broke, Centre couldn’t hold

Took it a season to return as a whole.

In two elections before the last show

Loudly flayed was bane of rigged votes

Sad, the fact that in our noble fold

Stories of voting fraud were told.

Chief, before your looming penal blow

Descends on learned rogues in robes

Why were bags kept till very close

To when conferees were about to go?

If the bags, in quality, were rogue

Wouldn’t technical insanity take a hold

Wouldn’t rationality take a bolt

Wouldn’t the Bar be chaos prone ?

Bags our colleagues stole

Phones our colleagues stole

In truth, our dignity they stole

Bar’s esteem reaches a sordid low.