By- Adenekan Shogunle, Esq. Fsi.
The law has always been a noble profession. But nobility, as history reminds us, isn’t automatic; it must be earned, tested, and maintained. Lawyers are human: fallible, ambitious, and sometimes even reckless. What has preserved the dignity of the legal profession in its finest hours is not the claim to nobility but the existence of discipline and professionalism. And therein lies the tragedy of our time.
*The Past and the Present*
Take, for instance, the late Chief Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams, SAN, the great and inimitable “Timi the Law,” doyen of the Nigerian Bar. Few remember that early in his career, he stumbled badly. He was caught trifling with a client’s funds, a widow’s, and was promptly hauled before the disciplinary authorities. It could have ended his career before it began. Instead, the experience reformed him. It chastened him and served notice to an entire generation of lawyers that the Bar had teeth and wasn’t afraid to use them. That brush with accountability produced a Rotimi Williams who went on to embody excellence at the Bar and set a standard for generations of lawyers to emulate.
Now imagine he had gotten away with it. Imagine the impudence, the impunity, and the entitlement that would have followed. That, sadly, is where we find ourselves today.
On September 16, 2025, Nigerians across the world woke up to the breaking news that Judge Ewan Paton, sitting in a property Tribunal in England had found three Nigerian lawyers complicit in fraud and lies. The news was humiliating, not merely because prominent Nigerian lawyers were found to have consciously and brazenly involved themselves in fraud, forgery, and impersonation before a foreign court, but because the revelations barely raised an eyebrow at home. Once, even a whisper of impropriety was enough to summon the disciplinary hammer. Today, disgrace abroad is water under the bridge. No shaking! The watchmen of the profession are asleep, and the thieves among us continue to walk freely in silk.
The problem isn’t that lawyers sometimes fail; they always have and always will. The problem is that when they fail nowadays, there are no consequences. All our accountability structures, disciplinary committees, professional oversight, and the moral authority of elders at the Bar have atrophied. The profession has lost its immune system.
The law is still noble. It has not changed. What has changed is that too many of those who claim to lead the profession no longer fear discipline. They wear rank as armor, wield connections as shields, and perform their fraud with impunity. Worse, they have become the face of the profession, overshadowing the many quiet, diligent lawyers who still practice with integrity.
*The Problem With the “Big Names”*
Some analysts have concluded that legal practice is full of chicanery and champartinous charlatans. We must stop consoling ourselves with the fiction that the whole profession is rotten. It is not. But if we continue to leave the rogues unchallenged, they will define us. They will teach the next generation that law is nothing but theatre, fraud in a wig and gown. And when that day comes, the tragedy will not be that the practice of law ceased to be noble. The tragedy will be that legal practitioners, through silence and complicity, chose to be ignoble. By then, it will no longer matter that law itself is noble. It will only matter that lawyers have ceased to be.
The recent judgment of Judge Ewan Paton in the case of Tali Shani v. Chief Mike Agbedor Abu Ozekhome & Ors is the sort of courtroom drama Nigerians dread: three of our own “big-time lawyers” parading themselves before a UK tribunal as if legal practice were a comedy of errors, except, sadly, it was fraud, not farce.
The findings were brutal. Chief (Prof.) Michael Ozekhome, SAN, CON, OFR, a man who the court says styles himself a “big-time lawyer” and a holder of two of Nigeria’s prestigious national honors was caught peddling fabrications so clumsy that the judge mocked his grasp of basic evidence law.
His profile, posted prominently on his personal website, and reproduced here verbatim, states as follows:
*A PROFILE OF PROF MIKE A. A. OZEKHOME, SAN, CON, OFR, Ph.D.*
*INTRODUCTION*
Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, CON, OFR, SAM, SANS, FCIArb, LL.B (Hons), BL, LL.M, MA (HC), Ph.D, LL.D, D.Litt, D.A, JD, D.Phil, D.Arts, HonDL, DHL, D.Sc, DLE, KSM, DSSRS, is a leading Constitutional Lawyer; Human Rights Activist; Pro-Democracy Campaigner; Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON); Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR); Professor of Constitutional Law; Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN); Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM); Senior Advocate of Nigerian; Social Critic; Public Affairs Analyst; Pro-masses Advocate; Knight of Students (SANS); Voice of the People (VOP); Bencher; Notary Public of Nigeria; Patriot; Pan-Nigerian; Pan-Africanist; Author; Researcher; Scholar; Court Room Gladiator; Multi-Columnist; Philosopher; Thinker; Motivational Speaker, Knight of the Order of St. Mulumba (KSM); Chartered Arbitrator; Conciliator; Negotiator; and, Mediator.
*EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS*
This pro-masses prodigy attended St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Iviukwe, and St. Peter’s College, Agenebode, where he made the best graduating results in 1969 and 1974, respectively. He later briefly attended the Baptist Academy, Lagos, in 1975, before being admitted to the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife. He graduated in law in 1980, at the tender age of 23. He was called to the Bar in 1981, after passing the Bar exams at the Nigerian Law School, Lagos. Ozekhome later obtained his *Ph.D degree in Constitutional Law from Alliance International University, Lusaka, Zambia.*
Prof. Mike Ozekhome holds the Bachelor of Laws (LL.B Hons) degree; Barrister at Law (BL); 2 Master’s degrees in Law (LL.M); and another Master’s degree of Arts (M.Arts). He is also a recipient of *15 honorary Doctorate Degrees (honoris causa), including a Ph.D by thesis from the Alliance International University, Lusaka, Zambia*. These degrees include Doctor of Laws (LL.D); Doctor of Letters (D.Litt); Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil); Doctor of Business Administration (DA); Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD); Doctor of Arts (D.Arts); Doctor of Science (D.Sc); Doctor of Leadership and Entrepreneurial Studies (DLE); Doctor of Humane Law (DHL), etc, from various Universities spread across the globe; Nigeria, USA, United Kingdom, Israel, Zambia, Turks, Carcos Island; and Belize, Central America.
A basic online search shows that The Alliance International University is an unaccredited university in the Caribbean, which formerly operated from Lusaka, Zambia. It has been described as “an online scam” by Undark Magazine. According to its own website, the Alliance International University is founded by “Holy International Ministries.” It has no physical campus, and all its activities take place online. Similar details apply to the many other unnamed “international universities” from which “Prof.” Michael Ozekhome claims to have obtained his many academic degrees. For many years, Mike Ozekhome was a walking, living, practicing fraud right before our eyes until he took his pernicious artistry beyond our shores.
Kingsley Efemuai, dually qualified in Nigeria and England, could not even bother to confirm the existence of his client, who, it turned out, may as well have been a ghost. And Mohammed Edewor? He brought in a doctored phone bill as “proof” of identity. Forgery by airtime.
The Real Crisis
With details this sordid, it is easy to throw up our hands and declare, as one commentator did, that “no one can ever have confidence in our profession.” Tempting, but lazy. The problem is not “our profession.” The problem is the small club of lawyers who mistake rank and robes for a license to commit fraud with flourish.
Law is still noble. Some lawyers are not. They are merely human and, despite a legal training and experience designed to elevate their person and persona, have chosen to remain at the basest level of humanity; motivated only by greed and avarice.
The real crisis is leadership. When the faces of the bar are silk-wearing tricksters and microphone-thumping “defenders of the rule of law,” what trickles down is not inspiration but cynicism. Ordinary lawyers toil away in chambers, drafting contracts, guiding clients, and keeping the wheels of justice turning. But their good work is eclipsed each time a “big name” struts into a foreign court and is unmasked as a fraud in a wig and gown.
To say we should lose confidence in the entire profession is to let these “big-time lawyers” off too easily. No! Confidence must be lost only in them, not in the profession. And consequences must follow. A profession that does not police its own will soon be policed by others, and there is no dignity in that.
The law has not failed us. Certain lawyers have failed the law.
The tragedy is not that lawyers fail, it is that failure now carries no consequence. When the Bar stops policing itself, the world will do it for us.
And the sting in this tale is simple: the more we allow dishonest lawyers to be our public face, the more the world will believe that legal practice in Nigeria is a punchline for avarice and fraud.
– Adenekan Shogunle is a Nigerian lawyer and writer based in Abuja. He writes frequently on law, governance, and public ethics.
