Commentary: When a Defender Is Docked: Nigeria Must Rise for Mike Ozekhome, SAN
“A nation that consumes its defenders risks standing defenseless tomorrow. To stand with Mike Ozekhome, SAN, is to stand with: the rule of law, the dignity of the legal profession, the hope of the voiceless, and the promise of Nigeria’s democracy.”
By Mazi Uchenna Nwafor
My Justification: Mike Ozekhome, SAN, Represents Peace, Justice, and the Voice for the Voiceless in Nigeria.
For over four decades, Chief Mike Agbedor Abu Ozekhome, SAN, has stood as one of Nigeria’s most fearless defenders of the oppressed, the marginalized, and the constitution itself. His name is inseparable from Nigeria’s human rights movement, democratic resistance, and the long struggle against military authoritarianism and civilian impunity.
Ozekhome’s life has never been driven by personal enrichment or political convenience. Instead, he has consistently used the law as a shield for the powerless, standing and speaking for journalists silenced for speaking the truth, activists detained without trial, communities displaced by state and corporate excesses, and citizens abandoned by governance failures.
Long before democracy was fashionable, he paid personal and professional prices and sacrifices for insisting that no Nigerian is above the law, and no Nigerian is beneath its protection.
The matter now being framed as a criminal case, arising from a property gift allegedly intended to be registered in London bears all the hallmarks of a civil dispute, not a moral indictment of character. To elevate such an issue into criminal prosecution against a man (Prof. Mike Ozekhome SAN) whose public life has been marked by sacrifice, transparency, and service risks sending a dangerous signal: that those who dedicate their lives to justice may later be punished by the very system they helped to strengthen.
Chief Ozekhome has been a bridge between law and conscience, between the elite courtroom and the forgotten street. His advocacy has promoted peace by insisting on dialogue over repression, justice over vengeance, and constitutionalism over arbitrariness. Weakening such a voice through criminalization does not strengthen Nigeria, it impoverishes its moral capital.
This campaign is therefore not about immunity from the law, but about statesmanship, proportionality, and the preservation of Nigeria’s democratic ethos.
A nation that consumes its defenders risks standing defenseless tomorrow. To stand with Mike Ozekhome, SAN, is to stand with: the rule of law, the dignity of the legal profession, the hope of the voiceless, and the promise of Nigeria’s democracy.Justice must not only be done, it must protect those who have spent their lives defending it.
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