I woke up this morning with a heavy heart—and a heavier sense of disappointment. The Nigerian legal profession, once proudly called a noble and honourable calling, is steadily mutating into something unrecognisable. The ethics that should guide lawyers to be society’s moral compass are now being treated like relics of a forgotten civilisation. Integrity and honesty—once our professional bloodline—have become luxury items, scarce and expensive. The Code of Conduct is no longer merely breached; it is mocked, trampled upon, and desecrated with bold-faced arrogance.
Today, many legal practitioners do whatever they please, not what the ethics of the profession require. And why not? There are no consequences. Abnormality has become our new normal. I remember a time when elders of the profession stood like immovable pillars. They were respected, almost revered. Their presence alone could correct misconduct. They were men and women whose character was as solid as granite. They condemned wrongdoing without fear or favour; the Bar respected them, and the Bench honoured them. These elders did not speak with double tongues.
But today? Silence. A deafening, disturbing, complicity-laced silence. Our elders seem to have evaporated into thin air just when the profession needs them most. They watch—quietly, passively—as ethics collapse on all fronts. They watch the standards of our once-admired profession disintegrate into dust, dragging our collective reputation into ridicule. It is painful. It is shameful. And it is dangerous.
The rot is deep. Too many things are wrong. The decay in the profession is now spilling into society, poisoning governance, poisoning justice, poisoning public life. Our professional association itself appears entangled in its own ethical confusion—too many selfish interests, too much political contamination, too little commitment to the nobility that once defined us.
We have reached a point where the legal profession, ironically, can no longer conduct its own affairs decently. All sorts of characters now parade themselves as lawyers, dragging the profession into the mud. And our elders, the same elders who once stood like lions, now behave like church mice—quiet, absent, invisible.
Professionalism has degenerated so brutally that indiscipline is now repackaged as the exercise of fundamental rights. Disrespect for ethics is now defended under the guise of freedom of expression and association. What madness! What tragedy! A profession that once set the standards for society now struggles to set standards for itself.
Today, too many lawyers indulge in unethical conduct that damages justice and corrupts the nobility of the Bar. And those who should correct them? They cheer them on, applaud them, defend them—motivated not by principle but by tribal loyalties, political calculations, and selfish interests. It is sickening.
Let us be honest: integrity is on life support in the Nigerian legal profession. The nobility of the Bar is bleeding. And what do our elders do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile, many of the litigations that have wrecked the rule of law, derailed democracy, and destabilised institutions were engineered by lawyers. Lawyers! Yet, not a word from those who should be custodians of the profession’s conscience.
This is my plea: Elders of the Bar, rise. Call a meeting. Speak. Lead. Do not watch the house you built collapse on the heads of the younger generation. Your silence is causing incalculable damage. We, the younger lawyers, need your guidance, your courage, your direction. We want to inherit a profession—not a ruin.
This is an appeal from the heart. The profession is bleeding. And we need our elders to stop pretending they do not see the blood.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 