Obasanjo tasks lawyers on nation-building

Former Nigerian president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on Tuesday, restated a need for meaningful contributions by lawyers to nation-building.

He said that the sanctity of the legal profession in the country was key to meaningful development and progress as the profession had a lot to contribute.

Obasanjo stated this in Abuja at the official presentation and unveiling of a book titled “S.T. Hon’s Constitutional and Migration Law in Nigeria,”

Though Obasanjo did not elaborate on specific contributions demanded of legal profession nor on the serious constitutional and legal issues raised in the book, he said he aligned himself with the position of the book reviewer, Prof. Dakas Dakas, who had earlier lamented a situation where courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction now lord it over each other.

“With all the criticism that have been said about the practitioners, I concur with the book reviewer and if our country must make progress the law profession must have a lot to do,” he said.

Reflecting on the issued raised Obasanjo prayed that Nigeria would continue to make progress. He commended the author, a senior advocate of Nigeria, Chief Sebastine Tar Hon, for producing something that would be useful not only to legal practitioners and law- makers but to humanity.

Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo commended the author for being clear and unequivocal in addressing controversial legal issues of law, especially the law of evidence and recommended the book to all Nigerians.

Osibanjo also commended Hon for delving into issues such as surrogate pregnancy, law of anesthesia (mercy killing), rights of privacy of public figures, amongst others, noting that the book would help resolve such issues if and when they arose.

The book, which consists of nine chapters and 1, 229 pages – excluding the preliminary pages according to the book reviewer, Professor, Dakas Dakas (SAN), and Dean of Faculty of Law, University of Jos, was not only apt, but relevant in throwing light on controversial issues of present times, particularly the crisis associated with migration in the country.

“We live at a time when we grapple with conflicting judgment of courts. Courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction acting as lord over others, high level of impunity and high cost of governance”, he said.
Other pertinent questions Dakas disclosed the book addresses included a need to separate the state from religion, immunity, as well as same-sex marriage.

He however advised that the author should write a separate book on migration law, noting that it was high time Nigerians began to ask whether “our problems were constitutional one or political ones, or even both.

Sebastine Hon said he wanted to use the book to showcase Nigeria’s migration law.

Hon, while noting that his book would help address future legal problems, disclosed that it was the book he wrote in 2004 that provided for the doctrine of necessity that helped the National Assembly in 2010 in resolving succession when President Umaru Yar’Adua became incapacitated.