The NBA President, Yakubu Maikyau, spoke at the inauguration of the General Council of Bar in Abuja.
The President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Yakubu Maikyau says there is a "yawning gap in the regulatory" framework of the legal profession.
Consequently, Mr Maikyau, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has called for a rejigging of the rules of ethics for Nigerian lawyers to avert a threat that could turn the legal profession into an endangered specie.
"This Council is therefore charged with the urgent task of updating the Codes of Professional Ethics applicable to legal practitioners."
Mr Maikyau spoke on Monday at the inauguration of the General Council of Bar in Abuja.
The General Council of the Bar is a legal body comprising the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), the 36 attorneys-general and 20 members of the NBA.
It was established by the Legal Practitioners Act and saddled with functions including making and amending the rules of professional conduct for lawyers.
Mr Maikyau observed that the lacuna could be seen in the NBA's rules of professional conduct, which he said: "do not appear to be adequate in tackling the contemporary challenges facing the profession... "
Decrying the 16-year absence of a substantive Bar Council, Mr Maikyau said GCB's inauguration on Monday, marked the process of "reinventing the ethical standards" of the legal profession.
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He noted that "unless we take the bull by the horn and rejig our rules of ethics and internal regulatory mechanisms, our profession may become an endangered specie."
While inaugurating the Bar Council, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, advised the new members of the GCB "to show commitment and dedication to the statutory duties of the Council... with regards to making and reviewing rules of professional conduct... "
Expressing hope that the Bar Council would reinvent itself in Nigeria, the AGF admonished lawyers "to restore the confidence which the public hitherto reposed in members of the legal profession."
He lauded the President of the NBA, Yakubu Maikyau, for his dynamic leadership.
The AGF noted that the Bar Council could drive the reforms of the NBA by "influencing government policies in view of its composition" of chief law officers.
