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.