By Ugochukwu Eze
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As you read this today, the 11th day of January 2024, lawyers, under the umbrella of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), are marching within Ikeja, Lagos State, to protest against police brutality and harassment of lawyers while carrying out their professional duties.
As a lawyer who has severally been a victim of intimidation and incivility by the Police and other law enforcement agencies while performing my professional duties, I am happy that Nigerian lawyers are taking this action. However, as we march today, it is necessary to invite all lawyers to kindly reflect on how we contribute to and encourage police brutality, while carrying out “professional duties”. I write this on the belief that as ministers in the temple of justice, we are men of conscience.
In many cases, police investigations are ignited by the submission of criminal petitions, which are mostly prepared by lawyers on behalf of their clients. Interestingly, some lawyers knowingly frame a petition to appear as if there is an allegation of crime, while the dispute is simply contractual. A client of mine was once invited by the police on the grounds that a petition alleging threat to life had been submitted against him by his landlord who was already taking legal steps to evict this client from his property. No evidence of threat to life was presented to the Police and, interestingly, the landlord only communicates with this client though a solicitor. The parties have neither met nor spoken over the telephone. One then wonders how the story of threat of life came about. My client was eventually released on bail after hours of malicious delay and egoistic interrogation. Interestingly, a lawyer wrote the said petition and knowingly added that allegation of threat to life. To this day, I still wonder what informed the lawyer’s decision, other than the quest to earn fees.
Similarly, there have been several petitions written and/or submitted by lawyers with the underlying intention of recovering outstanding debts but framed to contain allegations of crime, to provide a basis for the police to invite, arrest and/or detain and coerce the objects of such petition into paying the debts. In some cases, where the wordings of the petition do not contain an allegation of crime, the police officers would request the complainant’s lawyer to redraft the petition and even suggest words and expressions which will create the impression that a crime has been committed. That is why it is common to see criminal petitions alleging threat to life, breach of public peace, obtaining by false pretences or fraud, with the aim of convincing police superiors to approve the petitions for investigation and justifying the invitations and harassment of the objects. Some police officers even draft the petition for the lawyers who would simply adopt the drafts and submit on their official letter head.
Additionally, when lawyers have procured the law enforcement authorities to unlawfully invite, arrest and detain people and the victims decide to take legal steps, lawyers are also quick to support, defend, and shield the police. Some years ago, I was involved in a fundamental rights enforcement action filed by a man who was arrested and incarcerated for over one month following a dispute relating to ownership of land. It was shocking to learn that the lawyers to the complainant (who had procured the police to arrest the Applicant in the matter) drafted the processed filed by the police. The said processes contained very spurious allegations, meant to give the case a criminal element, and the lawyer who appeared for the police in the matter was clearly unable to explain the contents as they were mostly identical with the processes filed by the complaint (who was also a Respondent in the matter).
Many of my colleagues do anything and everything to please their clients. Some lawyers offer huge sums of money to law enforcement officers in the guise of mobilization fees, but as incentive for them to use undue force to apprehend, harass and intimate the objects of their petitions. I have been severally encouraged by acquaintances in the police to submit petitions through them, in their words, “give them the opportunity to make money”. Since many lawyers provide policemen with the opportunities to make money, any lawyer who is then perceived to be preventing police officers from “making money” will likely be a victim of police brutality and harassment. Interestingly, some lawyers who can take any steps to achieve results for their clients are part of today’s protest against police brutality. A brutality they ignite, encourage, contributed to, and facilitate. We must be men of conscience and if we do not allow our good conscience to guide our professional practice in this regard, there will be no end to police brutality.
I am, however, delighted, that lawyers are willing to speak up in unity on this issue even when some of them have not been personally affected. I am ordinarily of the view that Nigerian lawyers do not have the culture of standing up for each other. A few experiences convinced me in this regard. Very recently, I was harassed and assaulted by the policemen who man the entrance of the Lagos Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission following a misunderstanding relating to the use of their parking lot. While the drama ensued, some lawyers, including some known friends, walked and/or drove by and not one of them approached the scene to either confirm what the issue is or speak to the errant and gun-wielding policemen who were obviously bullying their colleague. While I am not in any way endorsing the recent outburst of some military officers against the Governor of Lagos State for ordering the arrest of a soldier who rode against the traffic on a one-way lane, I learnt a few lessons from the way the miliary officers defended and protected their colleague, in public and private conversations around the issue. I believe lawyers should learn to stand up for victimised colleagues individually and collectively, even when they have no personal relationship with such persons. Our growing culture of “e no concern me” has to stop, if we really desire an end to police brutality.
Commendable as today’s protest is, I believe it is time we marched in protest against ourselves by examining the way we carry out our professional duties and holding our colleagues accountable where need be.
Ugochukwu Eze, a lawyer, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
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