Chairman of the organising committee of the Nigerian Law Week recently held in Adamawa State, Jibril Jimeta, has accused some of his colleagues of giving their clients false hopes while pursuing their cases, as well as bribing judges to rule in their favour.
Speaking at a news conference in Yola on Monday, Jimeta identified corruption as the major obstacle hampering the legal profession and its practice in Nigeria.
“Corruption in the legal profession is now in full scale as some of our members serve as the conduit for exchange of money between the judges and litigants,” he alleged.
“We are not measured by our success but by the number of us who proved to be deviants.
“Giving clients false hopes on the true fate of their cases while some lawyers approach judges for bribes among other things were some of the bane in legal practice today,” he said.
According to him, the image of the legal profession has been dented by the bad eggs and legal practitioners need to engage themselves in capacity development, obeying court orders and strengthening the discipline mechanism at the NJC and the bar branches nationwide, to redeem its image.
“The battered image of the profession can only be redeemed, strengthened and cleaned by the legal practitioners themselves,” he advised.
Jimeta also noted that the legal profession had found itself in disarray due to breach of the rules of professional conduct and other practices that were inimical to the profession.