Psychologist Tells Nigeria: SAN Titles Must Not Become a Shield Against Accountability -By Professor John Egbeazien Oshodi

Nigeria’s justice system is facing a quiet emergency, and it is not only about corruption in the usual sense. It is also about a national behavioral pattern that many Nigerians have normalized for too long. We have developed a culture where titles can overpower truth, seniority can intimidate evidence, and influence can bend what should be straight. This is why the recent reports and public discussions about misconduct among some Senior Advocates of Nigeria demand more than public outrage. They demand a serious psychological and institutional response. When a society builds justice around status, the courts become less about the law and more about hierarchy, and the nation eventually pays the price through weakened democracy and public hopelessness.

I write as a psychologist based in the United States, not as a foreign critic looking down on Nigeria, but as a Nigerian mind looking outward to assess what our system has become and what it can still become. When you observe other legal environments, especially systems that have developed safeguards against judicial manipulation and procedural abuse, you begin to notice gaps that are not always visible from inside our own environment. Nigeria’s legal profession has produced brilliant minds and honorable judges, yet our institutional culture has also built a strange worship center around rank and prestige. We call it respect, but it has gradually become something else: fear, surrender, and silent compliance. That shift is not harmless. It is psychological. It teaches the public that justice can be decided before the case is heard, and it teaches young lawyers that professional growth is not primarily about excellence but about access.

The Silent Disease: SAN Title Worship Masquerading as Respect

The rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria was designed to recognize excellence, intellectual contribution, and professional distinction. In theory, it should inspire younger lawyers to work harder, think deeper, and develop higher ethical and scholarly standards. But in practice, something more disturbing has happened. The SAN title has evolved into a psychological weapon. The moment a person becomes “Silk,” many courts and many citizens unconsciously begin to treat that lawyer as a guaranteed winner. The public assumes superiority before the argument is even heard. Some judges appear pressured to cooperate with seniority rather than challenge it. Even opposing counsel sometimes behave as if the case is already lost simply because the other side has a SAN.

This is not respect anymore. This is conditioned submission. And once submission enters a courtroom, justice begins to collapse quietly, not with noise, but with routine. It becomes a hidden erosion where decisions begin to lean toward social power rather than legal logic. Over time, citizens lose faith, not because they read the constitution, but because they sense that the system is no longer neutral. When the ordinary person believes that law is reserved for the powerless while titles protect the powerful, society begins to break emotionally.

When the Courtroom Stops Being a Contest of Ideas

In a mature legal culture, courtroom victory is not supposed to be an inheritance. It is supposed to be earned through evidence, legal reasoning, strategy, and disciplined preparation. In the United States, a junior lawyer can defeat a veteran because the judge is required to follow the logic of the argument, not the size of the name. A junior attorney may not carry social weight outside court, but inside court, the law can elevate that junior voice if the research is sound, the facts are strong, and the argument is clear. The system is not perfect, but it is designed to protect technical accountability.

In Nigeria, however, we have allowed courtroom battles to feel like social battles. The presence of a highly ranked SAN can change the emotional atmosphere of proceedings. The case begins to carry fear inside it. The other side begins to second guess their own logic and confidence. The judge may begin to treat the senior lawyer with excessive caution, not because the law demands caution, but because the status commands caution. Once that happens, the courtroom stops being a contest of ideas and becomes a contest of intimidation and influence. And when influence replaces evidence, justice becomes a social arrangement rather than a legal outcome.

The Psychology of Prestige and the Addiction to Power

Every society has status symbols, but Nigeria’s major weakness is how deeply status can override procedure. When prestige becomes more powerful than process, people stop caring about rules and begin chasing access. It is not enough to be smart anymore. It is not enough to know the law. The ambition becomes something else: who can I know, who can I reach, who can I impress, who can I influence. This is the psychology of a broken ladder. When the pathway to success becomes unclear or unfair, people stop climbing by merit and start climbing by alliances.

This creates a dangerous professional mindset where young lawyers begin to believe that moral excellence is optional, but connections are essential. It turns mentorship into dependence. It turns seniority into domination. It turns professional growth into strategic worship. When that mentality enters the SAN culture, the title itself becomes less about scholarship and more about power display. The courtroom becomes a stage where authority is performed, not a forum where truth is clarified. That is how the law begins to lose meaning, not because the statutes disappear, but because the public stops believing that statutes can defeat status.

How Deception Thrives Inside an Untouchable Culture

A title that cannot be questioned becomes a hiding place for unethical behavior. This is one of the most painful realities Nigerians must confront. When society treats the Silk as sacred, it reduces the courage of oversight. People become afraid to speak. They whisper. They suspect. They endure. This is how systems rot. Corruption does not only grow because some people are bad. Corruption grows because good people become tired and silent.

In such a climate, manipulation can take both direct and indirect forms. Some lawyers may exploit their seniority to pressure younger counsel into silence. Some may intimidate proceedings through aggressive posture, strategic delays, or procedural games designed to exhaust opponents rather than defeat them intellectually. Others may use influence networks to shape outcomes beyond what the public can see. Even when every SAN is not guilty of wrongdoing, the culture of immunity gives cover to those who are. And the tragedy is that the honorable SANs also suffer from the stain of suspicion created by the misconduct of the reckless few.

The Inner Bar Fortress and the Collapse of Healthy Competition

When a profession develops an elite class that cannot be challenged fairly, it creates what can be called an inner fortress culture. The inner fortress protects itself through influence, silence, and intimidation. It blocks competition not by better argument, but by superior access. When the fortress becomes the final authority, the outer ranks become discouraged, frustrated, and emotionally exhausted. They begin to feel that brilliance is not enough and that ethics cannot survive without protection.

Nigeria is full of young lawyers who can out research, out write, and out argue many seniors. But those talents often die quietly because the system does not reward effort the way it should. When young people discover that diligence cannot compete with influence, they either become bitter or they become corrupt. Both outcomes damage the future. One produces despair. The other produces a new generation of skilled manipulators.

This is why Nigeria must rescue the legal culture from seniority games. A justice system that promotes fear of SAN titles over confidence in law is not a justice system. It is a performance system. And when justice becomes performance, citizens begin to treat the nation like a stage where the poor are punished publicly while the powerful are protected privately.

Naming and Shaming Is Not Enough

Public outrage can expose misconduct, but exposure alone does not reform a system. Nigerians have been naming and shaming for decades, yet many institutions remain unchanged. Real reform requires verification structures that cannot be easily manipulated and cannot be selectively applied. Nigeria needs accountability systems that do not depend on personality and do not bend to pressure.

We must stop building justice on trust alone. Trust is not a system. Trust is a feeling. A justice system must be built on checks, and those checks must be built into the structure so deeply that even powerful people cannot bypass them. If a system cannot monitor its elite, the elite will eventually control the system. And once the elite controls the system, the ordinary citizen becomes invisible.

A Technical Accountability Model for the SAN Culture

Nigeria must introduce a stronger culture of technical accountability inside the legal system, particularly around the SAN class. This does not mean disrespect. It means discipline. It means that honor must walk beside verification. It means legal excellence must become measurable, not mythical. It means building investigative and disciplinary pathways that are discreet, professional, and serious.

In the United States, judicial corruption is not treated as gossip. It is treated as a threat to national stability. Monitoring systems exist not because everyone is assumed guilty, but because power must always be restrained. A judge is respected, but the judge is also accountable. A prosecutor may be influential, but the prosecutor can still be sanctioned. A senior lawyer may be celebrated, but seniority does not mean immunity.

Nigeria must begin to think like this. Not because we want to humiliate elders of the law, but because we want to protect the dignity of the law itself. When accountability is strong, honor becomes real. When accountability is weak, honor becomes a costume that covers misconduct.

Liberating the Outer Bar: The Real Future of Justice

Nigeria’s hope is not only in reforming the elite. Nigeria’s hope is also in liberating young professionals from psychological intimidation. The law must return to the library. The court must return to evidence. Procedure must return to seriousness. Justice must return to credibility.

If young lawyers believe the only path upward is through unethical alliances, Nigeria will continue producing legal professionals who are loyal to power rather than loyal to justice. But if young lawyers believe excellence can truly win, then Nigeria will raise a generation that restores honor to the courtroom. The country must protect the future by making the present accountable. A system that refuses to correct its elders is a system that punishes its children.

The Nation’s Hardest Cultural Question

Nigeria must ask itself a painful cultural question. In a society where we are trained from childhood to respect elders, how do we correct an elder who is abusing power? How do we monitor someone we were taught never to question? How do we discipline a senior figure without being accused of disrespect?

This is where Nigeria must mature psychologically. Respect is not the same as surrender. Honor is not the same as fear. Tradition is not the same as silence. A society that cannot challenge its powerful people will eventually be controlled by them. And a society controlled by the powerful cannot call itself free, even if it holds elections.

A Therapeutic Ending: The Better Way for Nigeria

Nigeria does not need to destroy its elders of the law. Nigeria needs to heal its professional culture. The goal is not to shame people. The goal is to restore boundaries, rebuild trust, and strengthen justice through discipline.

We must replace SAN title worship with technical accountability. We must replace hero culture with institutional strength. We must replace fear with lawful confidence. We must replace silent tolerance with ethical correction.

Nigeria’s judiciary can still regain dignity, but it must stop treating titles as sacred shields. It must treat titles as responsibilities that demand higher standards. A nation does not collapse only because of criminals in the streets. A nation collapses when the guardians of justice become untouchable.

If Nigeria can return to a culture where truth is stronger than status, where evidence is stronger than intimidation, and where accountability is stronger than seniority, then the judiciary will regain its credibility and the nation will regain its moral balance.