Our last meeting was in 2007
We shook, we hugged and we talked law
Before your demise in 2009,
And then we could talk but no more.
Have you not felt our rising heats
From the bottom of your undying grave?
As your son and colleague in law,
I shall give thee a situation report.
The polity has not improved
More legal soldiers but weaker spirits.
So many supposed flag-bearers
Now chorus your solemn anthem
Of human right activism,
But only few are heartily doing the toil.
Ozekhome is now a silk
Falana is now a silk
Keyamo is now a silk
And Adegboruwa keeps knocking at the door.
At the centre of the legal profession,
The powerful still intimidate the weak
The old still inundate the young
The NBA is still lagging in some respects
The LPPC is still as parti pris as ever
The LPDC sometimes plays it off the track
Some lawyers now pay to buy judgments
Meritorious cases are still struck out on technicalities
Police officers now assault lawyers as they please
And fake lawyers now roam about as a plague.
For our learned brothers on the Bench,
Some of them have become market women
Judgments are now sold to highest bidders.
At the market place of the judicial chambers,
Certain judges have sold rulings like embers.
Judges now face charges
Like felons they have sent to prisons.
And for some judicial officers,
Bench rulings are now difficult to write
That lawyers had to spend days in prison
When they have committed no treason.
I make this report in utmost good faith
And in accordance with our fraternity,
And I shall still make more.
I give unto thee my unshaken assurances
That all my facts are true.
They are but true, and our lady Themis
Remains my Commission for Oaths.
–-Bolaji Ramos, Esq.
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