Ex – AGF says solicitors general, DPP be conferred with SAN

The former Minister of Justice, Mr Kanu Agabi (SAN) on Monday appealed to the Legal Practitioners and a privilege Committee to extend the award of the rank of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) to State Solicitors General and Directors of Public Prosecution (DPP) in the country. Agabi, who made the appeal in Abuja at the 2018 annual general conference of the Law Officers Association of Nigeria (LOAN), said the call became necessary because of their contribution and hard work, arguing that they deserve to be conferred with the status automatically. Speaking during the conference whose theme is: “The Law officer as an unbiased umpire amidst economic challenges and realities towards the 2019 general elections’’, the former AGF noted that since the conferment of the status on the Director-General of the Nigerian Law School is automatic, solicitors general and DPP should also enjoy the same privilege. He said: “It is among you that solicitors general and directors of public prosecution are appointed. In view of this, you deserve to be conferred with SAN status because of your hard work. You are working and you should be rewarded. “Since the conferment of the status on the director-general of the Nigerian Law School is automatic, solicitors general and directors of public prosecution should also enjoy such privilege because of their contributions to the legal profession”. Earlier, the President of the association, Barrister Yusuf Abdullahi Abdulkadir, had faulted the claims that the ministries of justice were not generating revenues for the government, saying that: “we save trillions of naira annually for the government. He called for the adequate budgetary funding and releases to the ministries of Justice in Nigeria and justice sector, just as he called for the intervention of the presidency over the non-implementation of the harmonization of 1994 circular of the salary of law officers by some state governments. In his address, the Attorney-General of the federation and Minister of Justice, Mallam Abubakar Malami, called on members of the association not to compromise their ethics as the country goes to polls in2019. Malami, who was represented by the former Justice of the High Court of the Gambia, Justice Martins Okoye, also called on the state governments to adopt the Administration of Criminal Justice Act as domestic legislation in order to improve the quality of criminal administration in the country. Andrew Orolua, Abuja