By Festus Ogun
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Yes, “my Lord is not sitting”. So, what can you do about that other than to murmur and return to your office? This information about My Lord’s whereabouts will only be made known to you on the very day your year-long lawsuit will come up. You will be told that My Lord has proceeded on an official assignment and that your quest for justice would suffer some few months of adjournment.
“Are you not on the platform?”. Court registrars would recklessly ask this question. Then, you ask: “what platform?”. They will remind you that the news of My Lord’s absence was announced on the “platform” and it was your fault not to have followed up on the platform. “Drop your number so we can add you on the platform”, and you end up not getting added unless you aggressively follow-up. But, does joining the platform guarantee anything?
Even with the platform, while you will get notification that My Lord would sit and even follow up with court registrars to get confirmations that My Lord would sit, you will get to court the following morning and you will see that your fellow learned colleagues are all seated, patiently waiting for My Lord’s presence. Few hours later, the Court Registrar will break the news, “sorry, my lord is not sitting. Please, come and pick a date”. Everyone at the bar begins to murmur and the circus continues. If you are lucky, you will get a date in four months.
I was in Abuja last month to argue a very important application, which I would not leave for our Firm’s associate based in the City. I got to Abuja in the eve of my matter. Rushed to the Federal High Court the following morning, with the hope of concluding my matter in the afternoon and flying back to Lagos in the evening. Thankfully, My Lord indeed sat. But, he informed us that he would be unable to take more than three matters because he had to attend an Induction Ceremony of new Federal High Court judges at the Supreme Court or wherever. In my case, I courageously rose up and humbly pleaded that my case be called out of turn as I came from Lagos, just the night before, solely for the matter. My Lord angrily asked: “Mr Ogun, are you a SAN?”. I think my Lord was upset or something, despite my calm and respectful approach at seeking the court’s indulgence. “As the court pleases”. I returned to Lagos with a renewed pain and anguish.
The days when we go to court and return home with nothing other than long adjournment dates are numerous. In the height of the naira design crisis in 2023, I traveled to Oshogbo for a matter, only to be told my Lord had gone for Hajj. I returned to Lagos in pain.
Perhaps it bears mentioning what I found to be more annoying. There is a court in Southwest where you drive all the way, only for you to join a zoom session inside the courtroom where the judge is absent and perhaps not with the case file. It had happened on countless occasions that I was forced to withdraw my matter from My Lord’s court.
My followers would be aware, by now, that in one of my cases in Northern Nigeria, particularly in Katsina State, My Lord had adjourned my matter for judgment since November 2024 and up till today, judgment has not been delivered. “Are you not representing the Defendant, why worry yourself?” Well, I am worried because the table turns and I could be at the other end of the divide tomorrow. The system is just not working.
Now, last week. I was in a court in Ikoyi to argue an ex-parte application. We had over 37 cases on the cause list. I was on number 27. We were in court till around 2:30pm when the hardworking judge informed us that he was tired. We understood him and picked a date. I was lucky to get a date for this morning. Getting a date for the following week was nothing short of a miracle. Most lawyers were given dates in May, June.
In fairness to My Lord, he is human and ought to be tired. No judge can effectively and efficiently adjudicate on 37 cases in a single day. Even 20 is an overkill, if you ask me. In any event, litigants have to bear the brunt of the dysfunctionality of the system. I can write a whole book on my experience of the system and the summary would simply be that “the system is not working”. Lawyers are bothered but dare not speak up. They tell you to keep quiet so as not to “offend the system”. They tell you that if you speak up, it will affect you “when you apply”. The fear of not becoming a Senior Advocate is one of the reasons our profession is the way it is.
I write this morning so that our countrymen can know that ours is not yet a justice system. “My Lord is not sitting” is a brutal heartbreak some of us are refusing to get used to. A judge at the National Industrial Court in Lagos barely sits. For about two years, my matter has only come up once in his court. For one reason or the other, the court would persistently not sit. Is that normal?
I may understand the situation of some of our judges. They are also victims of the system. And lawyers, bailiffs, court registrars and everyone of us have a share in the blame. One thing I know for sure is that we cannot continue this way. The excitement with which I started this journey of litigation is gradually reducing, not necessarily because I stopped loving litigation but because what we call litigation practice in Nigeria is generally a lie.
If you have the means to settle your disputes out of Nigerian courts, please do so without hesitating. If you have means to amicably resolve your wahala, no matter the contention and hostility, approach it from a win-win situation and get it sorted. If you insist on litigation, it will cost you even more because it appears the system is not designed to produce justice.
I write from a place of pain and genuine concern. The system is broken, bad but not beyond repairs. If the older generation failed us, our generation will not fail the coming ones. I cannot imagine this is what I have spent my 20s doing. Now, imagine doing this same lie throughout a lifetime? God forbid. We either sit down to collectively fix the justice sector or we are a risk.
As I drop the pen to prepare for my court appearance, may “sorry, my lord is not sitting” not be my portion.
Festus Ogun is a legal practitioner and managing partner of FOLEGAL. festusogunlaw@gmail.com
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