 Thank you for the honour of this invitation, a special guest of honour at your 30th anniversary and reunion. And I must thank my dear brother, Mr. Kutepo, senior advocate of Nigeria, for reminding me that I'm only a small vice president. I agree, especially when compared to my illustrious predecessor, Dr. Alex Ekweme of Blessed Memory. A man whose exemplary life of humility and constant search for truth and knowledge has remained an important reference point for all serious holders of public office in Nigeria. The class of 1991 deserves every commendation for forming an alumni association. By definition, being active alumni members means that one is a community oriented person, one is altruistic and public spirited. The reason is that alumni associations are about giving back and is evident that the class of 1991 is intent on doing just that, on giving back. And I'm told and we've been informed that in another few minutes awards and scholarships will be given to 30 young men and women who at the moment are at the law school and who have some difficulty in paying their fees. Well done indeed. But let me assure you that every investment in a lawyer is a good investment. These young men and women will very quickly, as Mr. Kutepo has shown us, that it doesn't take so long to begin to wear designer suits. And he has not said anything about the private jet, but I think that we can also talk about that. The tax people are not around today, Mr. Kutepo. So we can feel free to talk about all these wealth. Mr. Kutepo reminded me of our encounter in a case involving the present minister of Niger Delta Affairs. But my client at the time is a current caretaker secretary of the APC, senator. Let us just leave the details of that matter. Just to say that it was an interesting encounter. Belonging to the legal profession is an incredible privilege and I'm sure that all of us who are lawyers agree. Today we're told that there are fewer than 150,000 lawyers dead or alive in Nigeria, or at least who qualified in Nigeria. Now 150,000 compared to a population of 200 million is certainly a very minute number indeed. And these are men and women who are trained in the principles and concepts of laws in the applications to life from cradle to the grave. Every aspect of life is governed by law in one shape or form or the other. The theoretical and practical imperatives of social justice, rule of law, and all of these concepts that are meant to guard and guide our lives and guard our systems, we are the ones that are specially trained in the principles and the concepts of these laws. The training a lawyer receives at least in terms of practical relevance to human engagements at all levels is second to none. I do not believe that there is any other profession that is meant to equip you for every aspect of life. Even medical doctors will agree that when the matter of medical negligence comes to court, the lawyer is expected to be the defender. And so many other ways, practically every aspect of human existence. There is a law or regulation on everything from birth to death. And the interesting thing is that people believe very strongly that lawyers know all of these laws. People just assume that if you are a lawyer you must know all of these laws, which is why you hear and everyone of us knows also that I am sure that at various times the moment people know you are a lawyer they almost invariably either seek your legal opinion or something or the other and it's a very special privilege indeed. I remember the story of a female relation of mine who met me at a family event years ago and the long and short of her story was that she was troubled about a particular issue. Her husband had taken a second wife and she was married to him according to statute. She was married according to English law and what was worse was not just the fact that she had taken a second wife but the fact that he had now decided, he had now said to her that she could no longer use his name. In other words she was Mrs, let's just say Johnson, Mrs Johnson and her husband said not only am I taking the second wife but you cannot use my name anymore, go back to your maiden name. And so she was terribly upset and she asked me what my legal opinion, what my opinion was. Of course knowing that I am a lawyer she expected that I would give an opinion that would be helpful. So I said I explained to her that yes clearly the man could not succeed in any cult of law because nobody has a legal title to his name. If you are not a company, you are not a trade name, if your name is just your biological name you don't have a title to it so you can't stop anyone from burying your name. In other words somebody can even just decide tomorrow. From tomorrow my name is Yemi Oshibajo. I can't argue, I can't say why are you Yemi Oshibajo. If he uses my name for fraudulent purposes as a different matter but I have no title to my name so I explained all this to her and she was quite happy about that knowing of course that her husband would not succeed in a cult if he were to take her to a cult and ask that a cult declare that she was no longer able to use his name. But what then happened is what I found most striking. A short while after about three months after she sent me a WhatsApp photograph on WhatsApp. And that photograph had a dog, obviously a dog. I had a collar, the dog had a collar with a name on it. I looked closely at the name, I expanded the photograph to look at the name. And then I called, it was the name of a lady so I called her back and said what is this and she said no following my legal opinion she has named her dog after her husband's second wife. So at this point I had to issue a proper disclaimer to say that she never ever called me, I was not the one who gave that advice. But people take us seriously, people take legal advice seriously, they take lawyers seriously. But the worst part of it of course as you know is that most people, once they know any law at all no matter how small their knowledge of the law is they would usually just expand it in one shape or form or the other. I'm sure you've come across the expression many times I hear it amongst politicians in particular. They start by saying I'm not a lawyer but they will now make one earth-shattering legal opinion after admitting that they are not lawyers. So I think that we are taken seriously as a profession and we owe society, we owe our society, we owe our nation a great deal of responsibility to ensure that we live up to all of the expectations that our society confers upon us. Which brings me to the point that I'd like to emphasize for purposes of this short speech of mine. The urgent need to protect the integrity and sanctity of our system of administration of justice. The need for us and I think is an urgent need for us to protect the sanctity and integrity of our system of administration of justice. This system of administration of justice is the basis for practically everything. It's the basis for commercial relations, it's the basis for governance, it's the basis for every interaction that we have even either as between individuals or as between individuals and authority of any kind be it state or non-state. It is fundamental to everything that we do our system of administration of justice and we must protect its sanctity. And the reason why it's important for us to do so there are at least two reasons. The first is a selfish reason. This profession is where we derive many of us our living and also the prestige and recognition that society gives us. So we have a selfish interest to at least protect the system of administration of justice. But the second and perhaps more important is that this system of administration of justice is the basis for all of what we rely on in civilized society. Everything that we rely on is based on a system, a credible system of administration of justice. Unfortunately, I'm sure many of us will agree about the inconvenient truth to borrow that expression that are the integrity and sanctity of our administration of justice system is under serious assault and may well be in jeopardy. I think that many will agree that people are losing faith in the system of administration of justice that we run. Many people find first of all that there are too many delays it probably takes far too long to be able to get especially if you are going through any of our legal processes to begin a case and end it. Some would even say that a problem is not access to justice. It is exiting the system of justice once you get into it. So there's a huge problem of delays and I was just sharing with Mr. Kutepa and some of our colleagues earlier before we came in here. About a court of appeal case in the United Kingdom where Ipko and NNPC where the court of appeal in England looking at a case where this was a Nigerian seated arbitration and there was a concurrent case going on in Nigeria in Lagos and a case going on in the UK. The UK court was urged to suspend its own proceedings until the conclusion of the case in Lagos and council argued that no if you suspend the case if you for any reason hold the case while you are waiting for the case in Lagos it will take forever and a day and one of the justices of the Supreme Court now retired give expert evidence in Nigerian justice of the Supreme Court give expert evidence in favor of the argument that the UK court should not delay the matter and he said that it could take between 30 and 40 years to conclude the case in Nigeria as is justice of the Supreme Court who gave that expert opinion so if it justice of the Supreme Court and never mind whether or not that is even patriotic or right could say that then he must tell you something that we are running a system that we are not even sure whether it is designed to produce the right results the good thing is that every system is created by men and women not by spirits so if we want to repair it we can repair it when we wanted to repair this system especially for electoral matters which will take many of those matters will take far too long some three years, some four years while the tenure of the person that we are trying to unseat is running but we decided that and by law that all of the proceedings will take 180 days and that's exactly what has happened so cases have concluded in 180 days no reason whatsoever why by legislation by regulation we cannot control the length of time that it takes to decide cases all of the solutions that require for delays are solutions that are manmade because the problem is manmade delays do not make sense when they completely refute the very notion of justice itself as they say justice delayed is justice denied so it is up to us to be able to say no no no this is unacceptable we must repair it and I think that the role of classes such as the alumni class of 91 is to constitute ourselves into powerful lobbies and advocacies for righting wrongs within the system because at the end of the day this is our business this is our profession the second issue is that of corruption corruption within the legal system many of us of course know that this is becoming a major source of embarrassment a major source of embarrassment and we know that this system we know that this system is one that if we are not careful we may come to the point where people will say it's better to know the judge than to know a good lawyer and that is a very worrying point and I must say that most of our judges as you know are decent human beings honest men and women of integrity so are many of our lawyers but it doesn't take a crowd to completely discredit a system a few dishonest judges a few dishonest lawyers my judge is enough to completely discredit the system and what we have seen is that constantly people are beginning to wonder whether or not the system is one that is still capable of delivering fair and equitable justice or whether it's one that's corrupted so I think that there is a need for us to emphasize and to be advocates strong advocates for repairing the damage to our system now what can be done what are the steps I think that can be taken the first is bold and relentless advocacy by we who are the stakeholders I do not think that we need a whole crowd of people for reform purposes class of 91 alone can take up the matter not even everyone in the class of 91 what is happening today is that there is no advocacy for change there is none nothing is happening there is no real advocacy for the kind of change that we want to see second is that we need to call out members of our profession who are engaged in corrupt practices we need to call them out we need to ensure that we call them out whether they are lawyers or judges we need to call them out and the third is that we need to significantly improve the remuneration of judges and of judges and magistrates we need to significantly improve the remuneration it doesn't make sense for a judge to wonder where they will live when they retire whether they would even be able to afford a home clearly the salaries that judges and magistrates earn today cannot with any decent be able cannot pay for any kind of decent accommodation except of course there are in some states where steps have been taken Lagos for example and I'm sure a few other states have taken steps to provide homes for judges but we need to be able to pay judges significantly better it's no reason why the salaries of judges cannot be benchmarked against those of senators and House of Representatives members no reason so there's every reason for us to begin to look at what to do and in what ways we can improve the remuneration of judges and I think it's important that the bar association itself takes on this matter of discipline of members of the profession a bit more seriously that is being done at the moment I recall years ago while I was attorney general in Lagos a gentleman who was practicing in England came to me to write a reference for him he needed a reference for the for a matter that was that was before the law society in england what had happened was that he had been cited for misconduct by the court of appeal in england and he was now appearing before the law society and needed you know some reference from Nigeria to say that he was a man who had practiced law creditively in Nigeria and all that but what was the reason for this alleged misconduct against him the man had taken a matter before the high court in the united kingdom a criminal matter and took it on appeal at the court of appeal he was making a point which the judges the three justices of the court of appeal seated considered was an unaguiable position and they hinted him that this point you are making is unaguiable it's just not a point you should be making he continued making the point and argued and argued and argued after the hint when he finished the of course the court dismissed he dismissed the appeal and then wrote to the law society that this man should be disciplined for pursuing an unaguiable point after the justices had hinted him that the position was unaguiable that is something that is very unlikely here in Nigeria not only will people make unaguiable positions they will even file cases that are clearly without any merit you know and Mr. Kutepa just pointed out a case to me where a man is on appeal where a man went on appeal he was not even a party in a case and after judgment had been given he said that his name was mentioned somewhere in the judgment and so he had a right to appeal because he had not been given a fair hearing and somehow in the court that was allowed it was actually allowed of course the matter we hope will go on further appeal but isn't that just completely absurd how does that even make sense we all know that if you are not party to a matter constitutionally you have no right of appeal or you cannot even seek leave to appeal there's just no basis how do we get to the point where according to that knowledge that a man who has who's just as it were you know somebody mentioned would say I was not given a fair hearing what sort of fair hearing are you entitled to you are not a party you are not a party but I think that it's very important that we continue to emphasize and especially our laws are the legal profession the bar association the bar association is supposed to protect this profession and I'm sure Mrs. Odua is listening to this I mean we have to find the means to tell ourselves that look if this crumbles if this profession crumbles in our generation or in our time we have only ourselves to blame so I hope that we will take some steps by the way the gentleman who made the unagreable point you know appeared before the Law Society three times you know eventually was given a reprimand was allowed to continue to practice in the UK but you can imagine that he never again dared to do because he came this close to losing his license so it's especially appropriate that this anniversary should be dedicated to the goodness of God in these 30 years and that we are all alive and well and that you are alive and well 30 years post call is more than enough reason to praise and thank the Almighty God and so I join you all in giving thanks and praise to God for the successes of these past years and I pray for the class of 1991 that your successes today will be the very least that you would ever have in the mighty name of the Lord Jesus is now my very special pleasure and privilege to officially declare open the 30th anniversary and reunion of the class of 1991 God bless