Disregard for rule of law, recipe for anarchy, says lawyer

Aloysius Attah, Onitsha

A Lagos-based lawyer, Gerald Okpaleke, has charged Nigerian leaders to obey the rule of law as  panacea for purposeful leadership.

Okpaleke, who spoke yesterday, at the annual law summit organised by Law Students Association (LAWSA), Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK), Awka, Anambra State maintained that absence of the rule of law degenerates into a state of anarchy.

In the paper entitled: “The Nexus between law and purposeful leadership,” Okpaleke, who is a proprietor and principal of legal counsel of a commercial and corporate law firm, Gerald-Martin and Company, noted that anarchy occurs when people act in utter disregard to the law, just as government and the leaders act whimsically or arbitrarily beyond their powers.

Okpaleke, who is also a pioneer graduate of UNIZIK law faculty, said “ the rule of law also requires that laws are responsive to the needs of the society. The rule of law provides the terrain upon which law and purposeful leadership interact whimsically on the basis of the constitution and constitutionalism to provide good governance towards pursuit and fulfilment of the common good of Nigerians.”

He described good governance as a subjective term that decides how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources in the preferred way which centres on the responsibility of governments, governing bodies and public leaders meeting  the needs of the masses of its citizens.