By Oluwarotimi Akeredolu
 
 
I deliver this address as President and on behalf of the Nigerian Bar Association as your Lordship bow out from the Bench where you gave three decades of service to the nation. The rise of Justice Idris Kutigi was remarkable in every sense of it. My Lord was born in December 1939. In school he was a long distance runner. He is truly a long distance runner.
 

Believing in those words on marble by a distinguished English Jurist, Sir Edward Coke, that ‘there is no jewel in the world comparable to learning, no learning so excellent both for princes and subject as knowledge of the laws,’ his Lordship attended Ahmadu Bello University and later University of London for his first degree where he bagged a First Class honours in Islamic and African Laws. My lord was called to the English Bar in 1965 and subsequently to the Nigerian Bar in 1966. He joined the public service as a pupil state counsel in 1966 and rose to the post of Solicitor-General of Niger State. My lord joined the Bench in 1976 as a High Court Judge and rose to become the Chief Justice of Nigeria where he retired in December 2009.
 
 The Bar, despite the differences we had with my lord, which were purely on principle, wishes to appreciate the humility of my lord . Genuine humility they say attracts. Lack of humility subtracts. Artificial humility detracts.
 
 My Lord, you steered the ship of the judiciary to the best of your ability. You deserve all the accolades by earlier speakers and more. However, may I use this medium to express the mind of the Bar on an issue which we perceive as a minus. As the CJN, my Lord never bothered to honour any of the invitations from the Bar at least since I came into office.
 
 The Bar, under our leadership, considers this occasion as important in many respects, the most significant being the nature of the departure of the celebrant, Justice Kutigi, from the office of the CJN and the attendant controversies it has generated in the polity. The novelty of this disengagement, rather than the legality of it, continues to excite comments from two broad divides. On one hand, those who are the immediate beneficiaries of it take refuge in statutory provision gleefully interpreted to suit the official purpose of those who have ensured that our country remains without an occupier of the office of the President. So strident has been their approbation that the din of commentaries from practitioners and laymen alike who liberally proffer opinions, informed or patently ignorant, deliberately mischievous or naïve, that the real reason for this needless experimentation palls into obscurity.
 
 It is necessary for us to state the above so as not to leave anyone in doubt as to the position of the Bar on the issue. This, however, does not detract from the respect that the celebrant enjoyed from practitioners while he sat as the administrative head of the apex court in the land. The Bar and indeed the country owe this man whose lifestyle borders on the ascetic and other courageous jurists a debt of gratitude for stabilising the polity. Nobody can deny this fact of history. We are eternally grateful for their seminal interventions at the most crucial moment.
 
 Our country faces daunting challenges engendered by incompetent leadership. There has been an insidious transition to a state of despondency occasioned by the conscious policy of deceit and subterfuge on the part of the current impostors who parade themselves as the leaders of the people.
 
 The President of the country has been away without approval for almost two months. The ship of state has become rudderless and the people face the real threat of being marooned. Political jobbers and the scum of this clime admonish us on the need to pray while the ship glides inexorably to a stormy weather. Those who are placed at a vantage position to talk to the men in power take refuge in suspicious quietude when silence at this stage is plain cowardice or an indication of shameful compromise. The Bar will be relentless in its agitation for a polity where the law truly rules. We call on the custodians on the pristine traditions of excellence of our profession to speak out now or face the risk of being labeled cowards. We cannot afford the consequences of an imminent conflagration.
 
 As we speak here the city of Jos is burning. We have just had a respite from the onslaught of a confused group of young men who unleashed mayhem on Nigerians on the mistaken belief that western education is evil. Nobody has been brought to justice for this crime. The leader of the group, captured alive by soldiers was murdered in suspicious circumstances thereby foreclosing the possibility of unmasking the sponsors of this confusion.
 
 We have been unable resolve electoral disputes three years after the conduct of what was considered the worst elections in the history of this country. Our politicians continue to appropriate trillions of naira to procure darkness. Our hospitals are veritable mortuaries despite the vacuous boasts of past and current leaders. Our country is fast becoming a pariah in the comity of nations despite the charade of “rebranding”. Human life is the cheapest commodity in the political market as opponents are killed whimsically and the security agencies are impotent. The judiciary cannot play the ostrich by clinging to technicalities to support treason.
 
 My lords, occasions like this will always remind us of our country Nigeria. Here we are, we have men that can compete favourably well with the best in the world. But how are we fearing as a nation, how much regard and respect has the comity of nations for us as Nigerians. Over the years, regard for us as a people by the outside world, has dwindled considerably. We are seen as a people who cannot manage themselves. Who have no respect for their constitution. As a people who at the sight of a political opportunity abandons the collective interest that we all share.
 
 We have been thrown into so much unnecessary constitutional debates by political tacticians recently and the judiciary has not reduce the tension in any form.
 
 The first Nigerian lawyer, Sapara Williams said and I quote, “A legal practitioner must live for the guidance and betterment of the society.”
 
 Our late irrepressible leader and former NBA President, the late Mr. Alao Aka -Bashorun, a true master of the legal profession, once observed and rightly too that, “The role of the judiciary is that of the guardian of the Constitution. This role… put the judiciary in a taller and stronger position than the executive and, or the legislative. For an organ which alone can pronounce the acts and deeds of the legislative and the executive unconstitutional, illegal, null and void and of no effect, must by implication be the supervisor of the other arms of the state and must of necessity be superior to the supervised”
 
 Sapara Williams and Aka-Bashorun’s words on marble represents the thinking of the Bar till today.
 
 Judges and lawyers are members of the society. We must not allow this roof to fall. I watch with dismay a documentary on a war torn African country where judges had to queue in a refugee camp with others for plate of rice. God forbid that this happen to us. But we need to act fast so that the judiciary and the Bar will not be counted for conspirators .
 
 Chief Justice Marshall said and I quote, “The government of the United States shall be a government of laws and not a government of men’. Can we say the same of Nigeria where we honour men depending on their propensity for misconduct and celebrate the denigration of our constitution.
 
 We wish the celebrant, whose tenure expired by effluxion of time, a blissful retirement.
 
 - Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and the President, Nigerian Bar Association, delivered this address at the valedictory court session in honour of the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Idris Kutigi, in Abuja on January 20, 2010.