By Frank Tietie
I sought guidance and opinions on whether I should nominally prosecute the restaurant manager and a POS operator charging 10% to make payments for food purchases.
The consensus is that I should go ahead with the prosecution. But how can I?
In my 19 years of being called to the Nigerian Bar, I have never sued anybody in pursuit of my personal rights or interests. I never have in all my life caused anyone to be prosecuted by the police or law enforcement agencies for my interests. I usually let go. Especially when the wrongdoer had realised and, in most cases, apologised. I do not usually press further. I can go to war in pursuit of other people’s causes but would decline to do the same over mine.
Those who advised that I prosecute are of course right and correct because the goal of criminal law is to punish an offender so that onlookers would be deterred from further committing offences. That is how good behaviour is enforced in society.
The question therefore is; if I was prosecuted in my days of youthful exuberance, I doubt if I would ever become the reformed gentleman I humbly claim to be today. I would have been jailed or suspended my practice licence by the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee.
Yesterday, I wrote an article published in today’s edition of Daily Trust on page 26, wherein I warned on the need to respect judicial officers, especially justices of the Supreme Court. Many thought I had gone too political, but it was more than that.
So I remember, as a young lawyer; I once went on the radio to accuse a high court judge of having collected a bribe. The then thoroughbred radio anchor, Oheria Agbonsremi, asked me to repeat myself after I first made the allegation, and foolishly, I did with more emphasis. So it was clearly on record for all to hear and reference. Yet I didn’t have any proof. What kind of stupidity was that? Just from bloody hearsay? Lord!
It didn’t take long after the radio programme, the NBA Abuja Chairman confronted me with the broadcast and that the judge had taken note. I began to shake. I raised my two hands in the air, begging and denying that I had never said so. He told me that it was recorded on tape. And the begging and denial continued on my part.
Later on, the NBA Chairman met me and said that after pleading with the judge, he (the judge) decided to forgive me and decided not to either arraign me in his court or direct that I be put on trial at the LPDC. Again I raised my two hands. This time, not in begging and denial but in praise to God for His mercy. The NBA Chairman noted to me that he noticed that the judge loved me for my courage and boldness and did not wish to destroy my career in public and social advocacy. That was how I was spared the hammer.
https://everyday.ng/2023/02/criminal-pos-operators-in-abuja-as-elsewhere/
There are several things I have done in the days of ignorance and weakness of thought that if I were to be scrutinised, I would hardly not be found wanting, yet, to many people, I am a man with clean records. No! It is by plain providence that I enjoy a good reputation today.
I now hold myself to very high standards in many areas. For example, in my law practice, any dissatisfied client gets a 100% money-back guarantee in a refund of fees paid. That means if you engage my services and are unsatisfied in the long run, you can have all the money you paid back. That standard didn’t just happen. In those days when a client would pay cash, and his work would drag because of one problem or the other, and he would begin to complain. But none of them wrote a petition against me or filed a complaint at LPDC. So I concluded that irrespective of any amount paid by a client, his satisfaction is of utmost priority to me.
So having enjoyed so much mercy and understanding from the people I have offended in the past, who am I to prosecute another for wronging me?
The Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, declared thus: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. So why should I prosecute when they have even apologised? Mercy must then of necessity, triumph over justice. Therefore, I am withdrawing the complaint!
▪︎ Tietie, a lawyer, is the Executive Director, Citizens Advocacy for Social & Economic Rights (CASER)