One outstanding name on the 2014 list of Legal Practitioners conferred with the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria(SAN) is Professor Ernest Ojukwu, SAN; currently, Partner at Ofy- lawyers.com; President, Network of University Legal Aid Institutions(NULAI Nigeria); Associate Professor of Law, since 1998; Dean, Faculty of Law, Abia State University, Uturu (1995 to 2000); Deputy Director-General and Head of Augustine Nnamani Campus, Enugu, Nigerian Law School from 2001 to 2013; Deputy Director-General and Head Quality Assurance Nigerian Law School (2013-2014); Director, NBA Institute of Continuing Legal Education (2007-2010 & 2012-2014); and External Examiner, Kenyatta University School of Law, Nairobi. The list is endless!
However, Professor Ernest Ojukwu, SAN is an humble, unassuming, distinguished living legend and icon of the legal profession; but who before now was denied this requisite honour. This is a man close associates call different names, “Ernest”, “Teacher”, “Prof.”, “the father of clinical legal education in Nigeria”, and the Gbaonwa-Gbaonwa Agbaonelu, of Ahaba Imenyi, Isuikwuato Local Government Area of Abia State. He represents many things to many people-both friends and foe, within and outside Nigeria, but you must give it to him- he is a teacher, mentor, renowned advocate, great thinker, eminent scholar, administrator, and everything hard work and integrity personified.
For those of us that have known this legal icon closely, and worked with him, we easily said, it is an honour long overdue; but it has come. Congratulations, Professor Ernest Ojukwu,SAN. It is not the time that matters, but the worth in terms of merit. His contributions to the legal profession speak for itself. We commend Chief Justice Aloma Muktar whose candour made it possible. This is a call for positive change.
There is no doubt that the retiring first female Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Muktar has done well in many areas, comparatively far and above her predecessors. She ventured into thorny areas where her predecessors either ignored or played along for obvious reasons. This trail-blazer for the womenfolk has left some remarkable legacy that gives assurance that all hope is not lost after all. One such significant legacy is integrity- that value described as comprising accountability, competence and ethics excluding corruption.
Integrity is one value that discerning Nigerians cherish when professed at the highest offices of the nation. Unfortunately, the trend is to progressive disappearance of integrity as corruption, nepotism and other anti-integrity challenges steadily creep in. In the milieu, merit is dumped for mediocrity, hard work is discarded and mediocrity is endemic. As we watch national ethics, and ostensibly values nose-dive even within the noble profession, many continue to wonder whether it could still be recharged. We have witnessed one bold conscious effort during Justice Muktar’s tenure, ensuring that merit counts in selection of legal practitioners for conferment of SAN.
In the past few years the manner of conferment of the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria to legal practitioners has raised some dust and divided the Bar. Some had called for abolition of the rank because the process of selection of conferees was allegedly everything but lacking in integrity and fairness. It lacked transparency. But conferment of SAN to deserving members is supposedly a mark of honour and distinction; recognition of hard work, and should really encourage hard work.
Professor Ernest Ojukwu’s name on the list of conferees of the rank of SAN for this year supervised by the retiring Chief Justice Aloma Muktar, is heart-warming to members of the profession who yearned for the day merit and hard work could be accepted as precise yardstick for award of honour. It is also an inspiration for us to work hard and achieve merited honour which we can cherish for a long time. It is a challenge to incoming and future Chief Justices and all involved in the selection for conferment of SAN and other honours in Nigeria that integrity is celebrated, noble and satisfying. In the past the likes of late Gani Fawehinmi had similarly worked hard but suffered long deprivation that the average Nigerian queried the conferment process.
In the limited scope of this article, one cannot adequately report the contributions of Professor Ernest Ojukwu, SAN, to the legal profession; but we can throw insight into the making of the legal icon, and justifying this conferment on merit.
Ernest Ojukwu, SAN was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1984, after graduating with honours from the Nigeria Law School and the famous Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. On his return from National Service, he joined the Nigerian Bar Association, and is a member of the Aba Branch of the Association.
Since joining the Bar, Ernest Ojukwu, SAN, has been active with record of service at the local, regional and national levels. Check out some of the positions he has held so far: Secretary, NBA Aba Branch (1992-1993); Chairman, NBA Aba Branch (1997-1999); Sole Member NBA Sub Committee Y to Investigate Complaints Against Legal Practitioners, 1999; Chairman, NBA Law Reform Committee (2002-2004); Founder, President, NBA Eastern Bar Forum (2004-2011);Chairman, NBA Legal Education Committee (2006-2008); Co-Chair, NBA Editorial Committee (2002-2004); Chairman NBA Editorial Committee (2006-2008); Chairman, NBA Academic Forum (2003-2004; 2006-2008 & 2012-2014); Co-Chair, NBA Conference Planning Committee 2003;Alternative Chairman, NBA Summit on the Future of Legal Education in Nigeria 2006; and Chairman NBA Strategic Plan Working Group 2012.
He has been member of many other NBA Committees since 1999 and in the various positions he held and committees he served, he has exciting achievements to present. As Chair of NBA Law Reform Committee he produced a new Legal Practitioners Act in 2004 under President Wole Olanipekun, SAN. In 2006, the NBA under President Olisa Agbakoba SAN rather requested an amendment in place of a full blown new Act and Ernest Ojukwu submitted an amended Legal Practitioners Act which then was submitted to the National Assembly. In 2011, the NBA under President Daudu SAN set up a new Committee to draft a new Legal Practitioners Act. Ojukwu produced a new draft for the Committee and that draft is basically the bill before the National Assembly today. In addition to the Legal Practitioners Act, Ojukwu also submitted to the Bar draft bills on Legal Education and Legal Services Commission. This is also presently before the National Assembly.
In 2006, an ad hoc committee made up of President Olisa Agbakoba, Secretary Lawal- Rabana, SAN and Prof. Ernest Ojukwu reviewed the Justice Orojo’s draft on Rules of Professional Conduct for the Bar. The final copy, which is the present applicable Rule was drafted by Ojukwu. In 2007, Ojukwu also produced for the Bar the Rules governing the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education Programme. It will be recalled that Prof. Ojukwu was the first person to call for a mandatory continuing legal education programme for the Bar in 1999 at NBA Annual Conference at Ilorin under President TJO Okpoko, SAN.
He resuscitated the NBA Journal- Nigerian Bar Journal in 2002 and between 2002 and 2004 as Editor-in-Chief, published seven editions. As Chairman of the Legal Education Committee he produced guidelines for setting up a Legal Education Trust Fund but unfortunately the Bar has not paid attention to that. In the same way, as Chairman of the Academic Forum he produced a separate Code of Conduct for Law Teachers following massive reports of unethical behavior by many law lecturers against law students and legal education in Nigeria-a misbehaviour that has remained unchecked in many universities till today. Regrettably, the Bar has done nothing up till date with the Code of Conduct.
Ernest Ojukwu’s contribution and influence in the legal profession transcends his long service to NBA, to include legal education and legal education reform. With his outstanding results and some of the best in his class at the University and Law School, he was quickly engaged by the then Imo (now Abia) State University to beef up its then famous Faculty of Law at Aba. In this Faculty, the then young Ernest joined the likes of late Professors Osita Eze and Oye Cukwurah, who both identified his talent, and bestowed so much trust and confidence in his capacity and capabilities. It was at this point that the present writer met this special breed of SAN for the first time as his student in 1985 at 300 level Criminal Law class. In that class were some other notable persons of today’s Nigeria, including Senator (Chief) Anyim Pius Anyim, Professor Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, Mr. Eze Onyekpere, Justice Steve Evoh, Justice KK Ojiako, Justice A.C. Chioma, Dr. Nat Ofo, Dr. Chris Anyanwu and so many others. Each time we remember those days with nostalgia, we always recount his very first impromptu test in Criminal Law class. His assessment gave a jolt to the class and we had to sit up. From that point, this man meant many things to many of us depending on individual attitudes to integrity and hard work. In the years to follow, he taught the likes of GUK Igwe, SAN, Elder Paul Ananaba, SAN, Justice Ken Amadi, Justice Evelyn Anyadike, Justice Ahuchogu, and so many big players in the legal profession. He later became the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Abia State University, Uturu from where he joined the Nigerian Law School as a Deputy Director General. But before then, he had mentored, and continues to mentor some of us. He is friend and mentor to you once you can work hard and show integrity. Decades after graduation, we celebrate his integrity and candour-we celebrate this recognition of his hard work and integrity-and Justice Aloma Muktar’s legacy of merit.
Sometime about 1996 Professor Ojukwu did an article proposing profound reforms in legal education; little did he know that fate will have him accomplish much of his proposals. The opportunity came in 2001 when he was appointed the first Deputy Director General, Nigeria Law School, Augustine Nnamani Campus, Enugu. From this platform, and working with a supportive DG, he worked on his pre-conceived idea of what legal training in Nigeria should be. He totally overturned the over 40 years of archaic teaching methods, and introduced clinical legal education and a totally new curriculum. He radically changed the Law Students’ Attachment Programme and published, for the first time, Handbooks for the attachment, both for students and Law Firms. The attachment programme is now called Externship Programme. It is now one of the most serious training programmes of the Nigerian Law School.
Professor Ojukwu is the leading advocate and pathfinder for the introduction of clinical legal education in Nigeria. As founder and President, Network of Legal Aid Institutions, NULAI Nigeria, he has progressively introduced clinical legal education programme into Law Faculties in Nigeria and helped establish over ten functional Law Clinics in Nigerian Universities and the Law School.
Further on legal education, he established the Nigerian Bar Association’s Institute of Continuing Legal Education and designed the Rules and Guidelines that drive the mandatory continuing legal education programme for the legal profession. He was also Alternate Chairman NBA Summit on Legal Education 2006 and Secretary of the Federal Government Committee on the Reform of Legal Education in Nigeria, 2006-2007.
Professor Ojukwu, SAN, has many books and monographs to his credit, and about 50 academic articles in reputable journals; has conducted many conferences and workshops, and presented in about 200 conferences and workshops in Nigeria and internationally especially on Legal Education. Most importantly, he has trained and re-trained so many Nigerian Law teachers on the clinical legal education methods, while producing several Manuals on this teaching method.
He is a recipient of several merit awards and recognition.
With his record of achievement, there is no doubt that this is a deserved honour from the profession he has given so much to. It is an important legacy of merit by the retiring Chief Justice Aloma Muktar; history will be nice to this selection. Congratulations.
Dr. Sam Erugo
Abia State University,Uturu
sam.erugo@yahoo.com
0803 733 1691
