Some Lawyers contend that the NBA does not have sufficient legal grounds to file a misconduct petition against “baddest Lawyer” to Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee (LPDC). They argue that “her private life is different from her professional life,” and by extension, a Lawyer can live and do whatever he likes, so far as such misendeavors are not in the course of practice.

Without more, one can see the illogic and contrast in the above assertions. More importantly, those Lawyers did not avert their minds to the jurisprudence of the Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC).

One of the core requirements to be admitted and called to the bar, by the Body of Benchers, is that such a candidate must be “fit and proper.” Two highly respected members of the Bar must sponsor a candidate and attest to his character before one can be called. Mr. Bala Sanga, the Attorney-General of Adamawa State (as he then was) and Justice B. S. Bangi, OFR, a life bencher, sponsored me.

Again, the RPC like all our laws, is a colonial heritage. In the scope of the ethical rules, from where we transplanted the law, no such distinction is made between a private and professional life. Any action unbecoming of a legal practitioner or which can bring the profession into disrepute is actionable.