The Argument For And Against Ifunanya “The Baddest Lawyer” Is Embarrassing By Sabastine Anyia, Esq.
The legal profession is a noble profession. It is meant for those who are found to be fit and proper, worthy and credible in learning and in character. There are people who have been refused admission into the Nigerian Law School because of Petitions written against them concerning their characters either by their school, their community or where they worked before gaining admission into Law School.
It shows that it is not only learning or intelligence that qualifies one to be a lawyer, your character also plays an essential role in making you a lawyer.Therefore, your character cannot be compromised at any stage. Whenever the Nigerian Bar Association discovers that your character no longer meets the standard set out by the profession, the association is entitled to retrieve that which links us with you.
RULE 1 of the RPC provides: a lawyer shall uphold and observe the rule of law, promote and foster the cause of justice, maintain a high standard of professional conduct, and shall not engage in any conduct which is unbecoming of a legal practitioner.
It is therefore embarrassing, appalling, disgusting, surprising and demeaning for lawyers to be arguing on the Internet and other tabloids that Ifunanya’s nudity on the Internet and the open display of smoking Indian hemp, is her private life.
What is private about that? When she brought the entire legal profession into disrepute. If it were her private life, why did she write the “baddest lawyer” and not the “baddest girl”? Are you not aware that she posted her Call to Bar Certificate with her nude pictures ? What was her intention? Perhaps to ridicule the profession and make all lawyers look irresponsible.
Those who are supporting this illegality and public desecration of our respected profession must have a rethink because her conduct is unbecoming of a legal practitioner and as such, it is incompatible with our prestigious profession.
Some lawyers, even our respected senior lawyers are calling for help, they said she deserves help. This is strange and laughable. Did she tell you that she needs help? She is even boasting that she will win.
It is elementary in law that our courts are not Father Christmas, in this instant case, our profession is not Father Christmas. Even when a lawyer has to do a case pro-bono due to the pecuniary nature of the client, he or she must show that he/she needs help, Ifunanya has never said she needs help. There is nothing pitiable about her. She has only one mission and that is, to ridicule the legal profession.
I have also read from some lawyers that she is not the only lawyer that smokes weed or Indian hemp.They also argued that there are some Senior Advocates that bribe Judges, while some sleep with young female lawyers in their offices. The issue here is simple, we only know of Ifunanya, the “baddest Nigerian Lawyer” and justice must be done as a deterrent to others. If you know of any lawyer, be it Senior Advocate that smokes Indian hemp openly and post it in the internet and other tabloids, kindly let us know.
I am not aware of any Senior Advocate or other senior lawyers who sleep with their junior female lawyers in their offices or elsewhere. I am also not aware, even though it is possible, of Senior Advocates who bribe Judges and advertise their offices for clients. If you know of any, please give us their names, we want to sanitize our profession.
What goes around comes around. We cannot destroy our profession by ourselves. Every dog eats excreta but only the ones that leave proof on its mouth receives condemnation. No man or woman abhors sex, except you are sick, but it is only when you put it out for the public to see that you will receive condemnation. Nobody cares about how many men she sleeps with in a day, if she does it in her own privacy without dragging our cherished profession into it.
What is wrong is wrong, however beautifully painted. The soul of our profession must be protected because some of us have no other profession than this. I am therefore in full support that based on her current activities, she should be subjected to the disciplinary body of this profession (LPDC).
I also advocate for fair hearing. All those lawyers who are supporting her should be given the opportunity to present beautiful defences for her at the trial and if at the end of the trial, she is found wanting, she should be derobed.
This is the only way we can sanitize our noble profession. There should be no politics in this issue.
God bless our profession.
Sabastine U Anyia Esq.
