- Nigerians have good reasons to worry
The news that until recently, we have as many as one thousand quack lawyers in the country, is troubling. After all, if there was that large number of quack lawyers, then that presupposes that there can also be thousands of quack doctors, engineers, journalists and other professions in the country. It is therefore important that efforts be made to weed out all the quacks, to enhance the quality of professional services and to give value for money, to the clientele.
According to the Nigerian Bar Association’s (NBA) vice president, Akintokunbo Oluwole, during the special sitting to mark the 2015/16 legal year, in Akure, “so far, the NBA stamp policy has been able to revive the system and has increased the revenue stream of lawyers across the country”.
We urge the NBA to hand over the quack lawyers so far identified by the association to law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution. While hailing the stamp policy of the body that gave away the quacks, we are surprised that such a large number could operate in a profession well equipped to fight such a scourge. According to Mr Oluwole, “The issue of quacks has been a serious cankerworm which has eaten deep into the fabric of legal profession”. We wonder why the NBA allowed the problem to fester to this extent, in the first place.
We hope that other professionals will learn from the NBA’s experience, considering the ripple effects of quackery on the economy. Apart from the harm done to the integrity of the profession, it causes grievous harm to the clientele, be it in business, health services, construction industry, and other economic activities. When a service is offered and paid for, the public invests high hope that an efficient professional service has been rendered. So, it can be traumatic when instead of a gain, the beneficiary suffers losses.
The effect of quackery in the construction industry, for instance, leads to the collapse of buildings. In the health sector, the result is in failing health and deaths. In the accounting profession, we see business failures and setbacks. There is also quackery in the production of goods, which is sold to unsuspecting public. Many times, some of those goods, which are consumables, result in ill health or even deaths. Some of the products of quacks, like electrical appliances, cause huge financial loses.
There are also a large number of quack artisans, like mechanics, electricians, masons, carpenters, plumbers, drivers and several others. Most of them parade themselves as well trained, and their quackery is only detected well after they had rendered services, and had been remunerated. At better times in our country, the artisans were regulated, with professional examinations conducted before the operators were licensed and allowed to practice. Unfortunately, this has not been so in recent years, and the ripple effect of quackery on the national gross domestic product, we dare say, will be enormous, if the statisticians care to compute the costs.
Considering the enormous tentacles of the legal profession; cutting across the drafting of contractual agreements, representation in courts, standing in for clients as trustees, and other specialised services; the profession is too important to be left in the hands of quacks. As was noted by the NBA vice president, the stamp policy “has improved the authenticity of documents which are now being filed in court registries, since all legal documents now bear the stamps of lawyers to be considered valid”. While congratulating the NBA for cleansing their profession, we urge other providers of goods and services, to take a cue from them, in the interest of the general public.
