My Colleagues Use Their Knowledge To Defend Electoral Frauds - Okutepa SAN

Okutepa has been a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) since 26th August 2011 and one of the lawyers representing Peter Obi/Labour Party in the Presidemtial Elections Tribunal.In a series of tweets, the senior lawyer lambasted his colleagues who defend what is wrong thereby drawing criticisms to the profession.When I see what we do as lawyers before election petitions Tribunals and how we deployed our knowledge of law in aid of electoral frauds, I laughed. Nigerians are getting fed up with the legal profession. Nigerians are angry that lawyers are Nigerian problems. It ought not to be.Legal profession all over the world had its roots in purity of justice. It is a profession that should be leading light. But it appears that some Nigerian lawyers have become infested with Nigerian virus of primordial partisan politics of wickedness that they promote injustice.Those who know that all is not well with our political system still defend what is wrong using their knowledge to promote wrongs as if wrong is right. As lawyers we must come together to save Nigeria from sinking deeper in mess we are now. Nothing seems to be working.Nigerians are suffering. Yet people in power have no ideas of the poverty in the land. Nigerians are bottling up so many things in anger. We seem not to know that those who protect and promote evils will not escape the bottling angers of Nigerians. Nigerians are united in poverty.Jibrin Samuel Okutepa SAN I have never advocated that justice be based on emotions and sentiments. No I will not do so. My training does not permit me to think of it. But in doing justice no one should allow himself or herself to be used as road block to justice. No institution should above judicial order.When we used our knowledge of law in aid of disrespect and disobedience to valid processes in aid of truth, we have in the process murdered justice. Let nobody tells me that my arguments are rooted in emotions. No they are based on reality and practical injustice in Nigeria.I believe firmly that vast majority of us lawyers in Nigeria cannot successfully practiced law in sane societies where there are consequences for professional misconduct. The duties we owe as lawyers is for justice. We cannot argue for what creates pains for people as justice.There is a need for the legal profession to purge itself and bring sanity to our justice system where what is wrong must not be given baptismal name of right under the guise of legal jargon and arid arguments being promoted in aid of evils. Let us do what benefits majority of us.Jibrin Samuel Okutepa SAN