Former US Attorney General, Mr. Eric Holder, who was recently hired by MTN Nigeria Communications to engage the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on the fine imposed on the company for violating the laws governing operators in the country should know better. As US Attorney General Mr. Holder enforced this rule and this concept in the Federal Courts of the United States of America. Under Mr. Holder’s watch as US Attorney General, a Nigerian lawyer cannot fly into the United States and represent a company in American courts or before America’s administrative bodies as he plans to do for financial gain in Nigeria. The fundamental principle is to protect a country’s sovereignty, its jobs, its industry, and its legal system. Mr. Holder’s proposed mission in Nigeria as a lawyer breached all of those. Mr. Holder enforced that policy as the Attorney General in the United States so he should know better. Mr. Holder knows that if a Nigerian lawyer was to attempt to do that in America, it will be unfair to American lawyers, and the legal industry in America, so Mr. Holder will challenge it in US Federal Court. Why is the converse taking place in Nigeria?

The initial question raised by this news is whether Mr. Eric Holder is licensed to practise law in Nigeria. If so, when did Mr. Holder become licensed to practise law in Nigeria? How did Mr. Holder become licensed to practise law in Nigeria?

You mean to tell me that MTN cannot find any indigenous lawyer or law firm to litigate or negotiate a legal matter strictly within the bounds of Nigeria?

What expertise does Mr. Holder possess that cannot be found within the legal community in Nigeria that will warrant importing a foreign lawyer to litigate an exclusively Nigerian matter? Is this not a wrong signal in a country where virtually everything is imported and local industries are thereby not allowed to get started or thrive?

Even if Mr. Holder has an expertise, isn’t the proper channel for him to be hired by an indigenous law firm or lawyer as an expert to testify in their case as an expert?

Are we sending the signal that when serious legal matters are involved companies must resort to importing foreign lawyers from overseas because the Nigerian lawyers are inadequate for a matter that is exclusively Nigerian? Is that not an insult to the legal profession in Nigeria?

Reciprocity

I am not aware of any legal matter that could arise in the United States in which a Nigerian Law firm or Nigerian lawyer will be imported from Nigeria into the United States to litigate or negotiate. If the US is intelligent enough to foreclose this, why is Nigeria allowing the converse? Are we that ignorant?

The Mr. Eric Holder that many Nigerians may not know

In 2008, Mr. Eric Holder was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the US Attorney General. Attorney General Mr. Holder, as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, had the sworn duty to defend the rights of everyone in the United States, including the rights of fellow immigrants like himself.

The major Black Ethnic group in the US are the African Americans who trace their origin directly from the African slave ships to America. In their strict or rigid categorisation, neither Mr. Holder nor the majority of Nigerian-Americans who are more recent immigrants into the US fall into that class. Mr. Holder is a first generation American like many Nigerian-Americans in the US. Mr. Holder’s parents immigrated to the United States from Barbados. So in a loose sense, Mr. Holder is in the same category as many Nigerians whose parents gave birth to them in the United States. But that is where the comparison ends because they do not truly see themselves as same as African immigrants.

The US President, Mr. Barack Obama, also claims African descent through his African father from Kenya. However, until Barack Obama decided to run for federal office in Illinois and then, the United States, Mr. Obama was largely unknown to be interested in African immigrant affairs in Chicago where we both lived. Africans from Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Sudan, Liberia, Kenya, Uganda, etc., are in their tens of thousands in Chicago. There are several African community organisations in Chicago. Barack Obama was not active in African immigrant community organisations in Chicago to my knowledge.

The reason this is brought out is that many Nigerian/African Americans and Nigerian-African immigrants were persecuted in the US under the watchful eyes of both President Obama and Eric Holder and they turned blind eyes to these atrocities even though it is within their sworn duties to defend the legal rights of everyone in the US.

One would have expected that Mr. Holder, a Blackman of African descent, a first or second generation immigrant to the US himself, would identify with the plight of African immigrants, but not quite. African immigrants are on their own and must fend for themselves outside the protection of the well written but largely unenforced laws in the United States.

The YouTube video Attorney Amu was sent not only to the President of the United States, Mr. Barack Obama, but also to the US Attorney General Mr. Eric Holder in their official capacities. Both turned blind eyes to it. That is an aspect of the American culture many in Nigeria are ignorant of and I will be digressing to fully explain. It is not politically expedient for Mr. Holder to rectify the injustice being done to African immigrants like ’Lanre O. Amu (as documented in the YouTube video Attorney Amu) hence Mr. Holder must collude with the system and sweep the matter under the carpet, even as US Attorney General. In fact, shortly after the YouTube video Attorney Amu was sent to Mr. Holder in his official capacity as the US Attorney General for action, the same Mr. Holder was a keynote speaker in Chicago on a judges’ event where he commended the judges in Chicago for a job well done! How can a US Attorney General who saw the video Attorney Amu do that? Well, that is the side of America that is often secret until people like Donald Trump unguardedly speak out!

The implications of what Amu reported in the YouTube video Attorney Amu is devastating and serious for the future of tens of thousands of African immigrants in the United States. Nigerian/African youths in their thousands troop to this land not knowing what truly awaits most of them there. If Mr. Holder from Barbados can be US Attorney General, then a Nigerian born in the US can theoretically also be US Attorney General or even US President like Barack Obama. After all, the US, unlike other countries, is a land dominated and governed by immigrants. But for African immigrants to truly rise, we must take seriously the issue of the violation of the rights of African immigrants in the US which people like Mr. Holder so far ignored or covered up in their capacities as government officials. With what Mr. Holder did, Africans in the US and their descendants will be perpetually relegated to the bottom of American society next to the native Americans, and will not be able to achieve the lofty objectives that sent them to the US to begin with, including that of one day being Attorney General or US President with all it means for resolving global imbalance and the exploitation of a people.

It seems financially beneficial for Mr. Holder to fly into Nigeria, even though unlicensed to practise law in Nigeria, and fly back to the US after making his money. But the irony is that Mr. Holder as Attorney General enforced the law against that in the US making it impossible and illegal for a Nigerian lawyer to fly into the US and to do the same thing he wants to do in Nigeria in the US.

When push comes to shove, it is indigenous Nigerians that will defend this country. When the worst comes to the worst, it is the indigenous Nigerians that will bear the brunt in this country. These indigenous Nigerians must also be entrusted with all aspects of the business in this country. More so matters that do not lean on a lack of technological expertise that must to be sourced outside the shores of this country. We must open our eyes, emancipate ourselves, and stop enslaving ourselves and generations yet unborn in this country. The idea of importing people from overseas to this country when countless Nigerians can do the same thing must be halted for progress to begin in this country.

There is nothing Mr. Holder is coming to Nigeria to brief, argue, do or say that a Nigerian lawyer or law firm cannot be found within the shores of this country to do the same or better. When push comes to shove, it is Nigerians that will defend this country, not the Eric Holders of this world. For meaningful progress and development in this country, those Nigerians and their children need to be given the opportunity to work in their country. If every major corporation has to go overseas to hire a lawyer every time there is a major legal case, then the legal profession is doomed in Nigeria for Nigerians. It will meet the same fate as the textile industry, etc., etc.

In America the law enforced vigorously by Mr. Eric Holder as US Attorney General in US Federal Courts ensured that the top jobs in America are reserved exclusively for Americans, not for foreigners, not even for Nigerian-Americans who are legally citizens of the US like Mr. Holder, and are entitled to the same rights and privileges as Mr. Holder himself. That is why you will find many African immigrants with Eric Holders’ qualifications in the United States driving taxis, working in nursing homes, etc. Within the last two weeks I was informed of the tale of a Nigerian who died while sleeping in the dead of winter in his car in Atlanta last month having been in a rent dispute with his landlord. The Nigerian had a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, had lived in the US for close to 35 years but had trouble with common rent for a place to lay his head. Donald Trump’s error was that of being too forthright in talking openly about these things that are often unspoken but enforced in the US. In our absurdity in Nigeria, the top jobs are reserved for foreigners while the menial charge and bail jobs which no foreigners want are reserved for Nigerians. We are quick to import people from overseas rather than engage committed Nigerians to the service of their fatherland.

If every major company in Nigeria engages in this pattern, the Nigerian legal profession will be killed just like the textile industry in Nigeria. Barristers will be flying in from England and the USA into the Nigerian courts and administrative agencies and flying out while Nigerians whose parents spent their life savings to train to be lawyers will be left with the crumbs and menial charge and bail work only. For a post-colonial sovereign country, that is a bad idea. No loyal or committed leadership should stand for that. If there is any legal argument that a Nigerian cannot make in Nigerian Courts or administrative forums, then the company should simply leave Nigeria.

It is on this score that I respectfully believe that hiring Mr. Eric Holder for a legal matter in Nigeria sends the wrong signal, it’s a bad idea, and it almost returns this country to the colonial era. It is a bad precedence that undermines the legal profession in Nigeria where many Nigerian lawyers are not even finding meaningful work to do.

Mr. Holder as a person of African descent is welcome back to Nigeria, and if he is interested in practising law in Nigeria he must to follow the same process that every person in his category must follow before practising law in Nigeria. That is “the rule of law” Mr. Holder enforced the rule of law as US Attorney General in the US Federal Courts against foreign professionals. Those who have been blinded by greed, must retrace their steps. For Nigeria to be truly sovereign and developed, we must adhere to that rule of law. We are not slaves to the world. Nigerians are intelligent, Nigerians are Trustworthy, Nigerians must be given the opportunity to truly serve their country. A person without any attachment or legal commitment whatsoever to this country cannot just fly into this country and take the top legal job and then fly out. It’s not done anywhere in the modern world. Mr. Holder as US Attorney General ensured that that will never happen in the US.

•’Lanre O. Amu is a US-based Civil Rights Attorney. He can be reached via loamu@aol.com. Photo shows former US Attorney General, Mr. Eric Holder.

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