Blue Silks rank controversy: ‘How CJN, NBA, LPPC silence conferred tacit approval’

Amid ongoing ineligible conflict and contention implicit the instauration of the Blue Silks fertile of Senior Counsel of Nigeria, SCN, arsenic an alternate to the rubric of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, for Nigerian lawyers, the Association of Legislative Drafting and Advocacy Practitioners, ALDRAP, has asserted that authorities successful the ineligible assemblage gave “tacit” support to the development.

The Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, had rejected the Blue Silks rank, describing it arsenic illegal, and the NBA’s Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee, LPPC, which confers the SAN rubric connected lawyers adjudged to person merited the honour, warned that lawyers parading the Blue Silks fertile hazard being sanctioned for nonrecreational misconduct.

Following the threat, ALDRAP, which introduced the Blue Silks fertile for non-litigation lawyers, approached an Abuja Federal High Court to support its members’ cardinal rights, and besides halt the NBA and others from interfering successful matters concerning the Blue Silks rank.

ALDRAP is relying connected a judgement delivered by Justice Mohammed Garba Umar of the Abuja Federal High Court, dated 27th January 2026, to warrant its statement that the NBA and LPPC person nary authorization implicit the Blue Silks rank. The judgement stated that the NBA cannot modulate items that were not included successful the Legal Practitioners Act, 1962. Based connected the pronouncement, ALDRAP argued that since the Blue Silks fertile w...