Olasunkanmi Owoyemi Has Published A Notice Of Retraction Withdrawing The Full-Page Congratulatory Advertisement He Placed At Page 20 Of The Tuesday, 13 October 2026 Edition Of ThisDay In Celebration Of Mustapha Olayinka Ajenifuja, SAN, Stating That It Was Intended As A Surprise But Was Published Without The Prior Knowledge, Authorization Or Express Consent Of The Senior Advocate, Acknowledging That It May Have Caused Him Inconvenience Or Attracted Unintended Public Attention, And Apologising To Him And To His Professional Colleagues, In A Notice That Answers The Single Evidential Question This Publication Identified As Dispositive When It Reported The Advertisement
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The man who placed the full-page advertisement congratulating a newly conferred Senior Advocate of Nigeria has withdrawn it and apologised.
In a published Notice of Retraction, Olasunkanmi Owoyemi addressed the advertisement that appeared at page 20 of the Tuesday, 13 October 2026 edition of ThisDay, celebrating Mustapha Olayinka Ajenifuja, SAN, on his elevation to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
“I refer to the congratulatory advertisement published at Page 20 of the Tuesday, October 13, 2026 edition of ThisDay Newspaper placed by Olasunkanmi Owoyemi in celebration of Mustapha Olayinka Ajenifuja, SAN, on his elevation to the prestigious rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).”
“I wish to clarify that the advertisement was intended as a surprise congratulatory message to celebrate this significant professional milestone. However, it was published without the prior knowledge, authorization, or express consent of Mustapha Olayinka Ajenifuja, SAN.”
“I acknowledge that the publication, notwithstanding its celebratory intent, may have caused him some inconvenience or attracted unintended public attention.”
“Accordingly, I hereby retract the said publication and sincerely apologize to Mustapha Olayinka Ajenifuja, SAN, as well as his professional colleagues, for any inconvenience or concern the publication may have occasioned.”
“I regret any unintended consequences arising from this publication and reaffirm that my sole intention was to celebrate and honour this remarkable achievement.”
The notice is signed Olasunkanmi Owoyemi.
TheNigerialawyer reported the advertisement earlier this week, together with a second full-page congratulatory advertisement in the same edition, under a report which set out what appeared, what the profession’s leadership had said the previous day, and what the governing instruments could and could not reach.
On what appeared. The report recorded that page 20 of the Tuesday, 13 October 2026 edition of ThisDay carried a full-page advertisement headed “HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS TO MUSTAPHA OLAYINKA AJENIFUJA, SAN”, with a photograph of the new Senior Advocate in silk robes and wig, describing the conferment as “a reflection of his professional excellence, integrity and contribution to the Nigerian Legal Profession”, and signed “Olasunkanmi Owoyemi”. It recorded that page 10 of the same edition carried a separate full-page advertisement celebrating another new Senior Advocate, signed by her husband and children.
On the restriction. It reported that the new Senior Advocates were said to have been warned at a mandatory pre-swearing-in induction not to publish advertisements, congratulatory messages or goodwill notices concerning their nomination or conferment, and that the restriction was said to rest on a provision of the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee Guidelines and on the advertising and publicity provisions of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2023. It declined to print the paragraph and rule numbers attributed to that restriction because they had not been verified against the primary instruments.
On what the ceremony had said. It carried the Attorney-General of the Federation’s statement at the special session of the Supreme Court the previous day that “the silk gown is not a commercial licence. It is a mantle of professional, constitutional and social responsibility”; the Chief Justice’s reminder that “the fact that a lawyer has attained the rank of Senior Advocate does not place him beyond accountability”; and Chief Wole Olanipekun’s charge to the new silks, “not for you to lose your head”.
And on the law. The report stated, as the first and central proposition of its analysis, that neither advertisement was signed by the Senior Advocate it celebrated, and that this was “not a technicality” but “the whole of the legal question”.
“So the question for either instrument is identical, and it is evidential rather than doctrinal: did the conferee publish, sponsor, authorise, procure or encourage the publication? A relative acting of his own motion is outside the lawyer’s control and outside the rules. A relative acting at the lawyer’s request is the lawyer publishing by another hand.”
“Nothing in the advertisements themselves answers that question, and this report does not purport to answer it.”
It added that the Rules of Professional Conduct bind legal practitioners and do not bind a spouse who is not a lawyer, a friend, a client or a newspaper; that no rule of the legal profession binds a publisher; and that a third party’s right to congratulate a lawyer is protected by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression, so that a professional regulator may restrain a lawyer’s own advertising but has no power to restrain members of the public from publishing praise of a lawyer.
It carried an editor’s note stating that nothing in the material available established that either Senior Advocate had placed, paid for, authorised, procured or encouraged the advertisements, and a verification note instructing that neither Senior Advocate might be reported as having breached anything.
TheNigeriaLawyer sought comment at the time from both Senior Advocates, from both persons who signed the advertisements, from the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee, from the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria and from the publisher.
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