‘Lawyers Must Tread on the Path of Rectitude’
I am Chris Akiri, a product of several tertiary institutions, including the University of Ibadan, where I read History, Political Science and French, obtaining my first Degree, B.A. (Hons.) in History, the University of London, where I underwent an Inter-LLB programme, University of Lagos, where I acquired an LLB (SecondClass Upper Division) and LLM Degree. I was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1992. I am also an alumnus of Bradford University, Yorkshire, England, Urwick Management Centre, Slough, Reading, England, and PennState University, Pennsylvania, USA.
I was a pioneer lecturer, at the Federal Government College, Maiduguri, then posted to the Bureau for External Aid for Education, Ikoyi, Lagos, where I was made a Project Officer, monitoring World Bank (IDA/ IBRD) education projects in several secondary schools in Nigeria, along with Mr. Mulungeta Wodajo, a brilliant Kenyan social scientist, and Dr. Alex Ekwueme, who later became Vice-President of Nigeria.
In 1985, I joined the banking industry, where I headed the Human Resources Department of Merchant Bank of Africa (MBA) and later the Group Head of Human Resources, Corporate Affairs and Administration Division of Universal Trust Bank (UTB), from which I resigned, in 2000, to establish Chris W.A. Akiri & Co., a firm of legal consultants, of which I was and remain the Managing Partner.
I was appointed Director of the National Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research, New Bussa, Niger State, by the late President Umar Musa Yar’ Ardua, and played a dominant role in the 2005 National Reforms Confer- ence convened by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
I have been Chairman of a paper committed to investigative journalism, since 2006, and now the Legal Adviser to the Editorial Board of the Sun newspapers into the bargain.
Have you had any challenges in your career as a lawyer and if so, what are the main challenges?
I have had no serious challenges in all my years of legal practice. What was your worst day as a lawyer? None.
What was your most memorable experience as a lawyer?
My most memorable experience as a lawyer, was when I helped a poor family, husband, a security officer on N6,000 per mensem and wife an Agege bread seller. Their 72-year-old landlord, deflowered and defiled their 8-year-old daughter! I saw to it that the man was sentenced to life imprisonment. I reasoned that if anyone did that to any of my five girls, I would pursue the matter to its logical conclusion. When the man was jailed for life, I was ecstatic. The law was applied in the Austinian/Kelsian style,
and not
Who has been most influential in your life?
The late Chief Gani Fawehinmi with whom I worked for a while, was my mentor and role model, as far as Law and its practice are concerned, while my Mother was the most influential in my life. First and foremost, she made me continue beyond Primary Five, and paid my school fees against all odds.
Why did you become a lawyer? I became a lawyer to rescue the oppressed, the repressed and the suppressed, from the browbeating stranglehold of injustice and all manner of unfair play; to review judicial decisions as they affect the “wretched of the earth” to masturbate the ego of the bourgeois class.
What would your advice be to anyone wanting to become a lawyer?
I would advice anyone desirous of becoming a lawyer, to pursue the profession vigorously and earnestly, because it is not only a noble profession in which the serious practitioner is made to know something about everything and everything about something, it is a profession in which, either as a lawyer or as a judge, justice is dispensed to persons with divergent views. It does not matter, what the people say about lawyers. There are bad eggs in every profession: Some civil engineers, disingenuously build houses with substandard materials and such houses collapse, killing people; there are some creative accountants who essay to cripple the economy via creative accountancy, etc. I would advice anyone trying to read Law, to tread on the path of rectitude and steer clear of the whirlpool of evil, to justify and sustain the age-old epithet of the legal profession being a noble profession.
If you had not become a lawyer, what career would you have chosen?
If I had not become a lawyer, I would have loved to become a medical doctor if my level of Science and Mathematics, permitted me a place in that life-saving profession.
Where do you see yourself in ten years? In the next ten years, I would like to churn out books in the realms of Law, History, Human Rights and Socio-Economic matters. So far, I am the proud author of five books, including
launched recently.