Daffi: The silk, the burden, and the verdict of justice

Nigeria has acquired another silk. The applause is deserved. The more difficult question is whether ordinary Nigerians will acquire a little more justice.

On October 12, 2026, Plateau State’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Philemon Audu Daffi, joined the Inner Bar at the Supreme Court in Abuja. Chief Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun admitted 68 new Senior Advocates of Nigeria SANs), comprising 67 advocates and one academic. Daffi appeared ninth on the advocates’ seniority list. Congratulations are in order.

But in Nigeria, where ceremonies often receive better funding than institutions, congratulations cannot be the entire conversation.

I know Daffi beyond the headlines. We serve together on the Council of the Plateau State MultiDoor Courthouse. That shared institutional responsibility gives me reason to celebrate him, and perhaps greater reason to insist that the new rank must mean something beyond a distinguished gown, because I know that he is a distinguished gentleman and esq in the real parlance.

The SAN rank began in 1975 with Chief F.R.A. Williams and Dr Nabo Graham Douglas. Folake Solanke broke the gender barrier in 1981. Over five decades, the Inner Bar has grown into a formidable community of advocates and scholars. Yet its expansion has not matched the speed with which an ordinary litigant can obtain justice. We have multiplied silks without sufficiently shortening queues.

The irony is painfully Nigerian. A citizen can spend years proving ownership of land that a trespasser occupied in an afternoon. A widow may require more money to recover an inheritance than the inheritance is worth. A young person arrested without means to hire counsel can discover that constitutional rights are written, but expensive to exercise. None of this is an argument against professional distinction. It is an argument against confusing distinction with transformation.

Daffi enters this chapter carrying a consequential office. An attorney general is not simply the government’s lawyer when a politically inconvenient case arrives. He is a constitutional actor whose decisions help determine whether law protects the weak, restrains the powerful and survives changes of administration. His obligation to public interest must outlive any government’s political convenience. This man has done it!

And he has done it, in a Plateau that makes that responsibility heavy. Here, land disputes are rarely only about land. Inheritance disagreements can reopen family wounds. Violence displaces communities, fractures trust and leaves questions of restitution unanswered. The law meets identity, grief, insecurity and memory at the same crowded crossroads. A technical victory in court may settle a file without settling a community.

This is precisely why our work at the Plateau State Multi Door Courthouse matters. Under the leadership of Justice Nafisah Lawal Musa, we seek to make mediation, arbitration, conciliation and other appropriate dispute resolution pathways credible alternatives to needless litigation. I have seen how listening can prevent a disagreement from becoming a generational feud. Sometimes justice requires a judgment. Sometimes it requires a table, patient ears and the courage to apologise.

Let nobody misunderstand me. Mediation is not a laundering machine for criminal wrongdoing. Serious offences demand investigation, prosecution and accountability. Reconciliation without justice can become another name for impunity. The challenge is to know which door a dispute belongs behind, and ensure that the person approaching it is not priced out before entering.

The Ministry of Justice is doing a lot to strengthen these connections. Better referrals to the Courthouse, support for legal aid, collaboration with traditional institutions and transparent case tracking to arrive at measurable consequences. We are trying in knowing how many disputes are resolved, how long they take, what settlements endure and who remains excluded. Government cannot improve what it refuses to count.

Then there is legislative reform. Daffi has spoken publicly about reviewing 166 Plateau State laws, many reflecting an older era. That exercise deserves attention. A statute retaining obsolete penalties or language is not an antique to be admired; it is a governance problem to be corrected. But reviewing laws is the easy headline. Publishing revised texts, consulting affected communities, equipping implementing agencies and monitoring outcomes are the harder chapters. This is a continuum and starting it in the first place is an A+.

A law that sleeps peacefully in the gazette while citizens suffer is not reform. It is stationery with official ambition.

Nigeria’s wider judicial condition supplies the warning. In May 2026, the National Judicial Council reported querying 256 judicial officers on performance related matters and suspending two judges without pay. Those figures do not mean every queried officer was guilty of misconduct. They remind us that oversight, performance and public trust must be taken seriously. Justice delayed is not merely justice denied; sometimes it becomes justice abandoned because the complainant dies, relocates or runs out of money.

Plateau has witnessed the political consequences of judicial uncertainty too. The litigation surrounding Governor Caleb Mutfwang’s election, ultimately resolved by the Supreme Court in January 2024, exposed how dramatically court decisions can shape public confidence. Citizens need more than winning and losing political camps. They need intelligible reasoning, consistency and a judiciary that neither fears power nor courts its favour.

For Daffi, I therefore propose a modest but demanding public scorecard. 

Can prosecution become more competent and less vulnerable to avoidable delays? Can indigent defendants and victims access representation? Can the ministry publish justice delivery data? Can survivors of violence pursue remedies without navigating a maze of offices? Can young lawyers find mentorship that prizes ethics over connections? Can our Multi Door Courthouse receive the institutional backing that turns promise into practice?

These are not questions designed to diminish a friend. They are the questions serious congratulations ought to carry. And I see the smile on his face as he assures me and millions of Plateau state people; he is done it, he is doing it, he will keep doing it.

I would also like the new silks collectively to reconsider their social contract. Nigeria does not need an Inner Bar that functions primarily as an exclusive seating arrangement at public events. We need senior advocates willing to defend fair process when it is unpopular, challenge executive excess even when politically inconvenient, and offer professional guidance to those who cannot pay premium fees.

The CJN rightly warned the new recipients that elevation confers no immunity from accountability. Quite so. Silk is fabric, not armour. It should make the wearer more conscious of responsibility, not less available to criticism. If the gown becomes heavier than conscience, we have missed the point entirely.

Personally, I am proud of Daffi’s achievement. I congratulate him in the spirit of our shared service, friendship, alongside the leadership, management and colleagues of the Plateau State Multi Door Courthouse. I congratulate the other recipients as well. Their professional journeys deserve recognition, and the country deserves the benefit of their learning.

My expectation is simple: may Daffi’s influence grow without his accessibility shrinking. May his public office become a bridge between statutes and ordinary lives. May Plateau demonstrate that peacebuilding, lawful accountability and accessible dispute resolution are not competing ambitions, but parts of one credible justice system.

There were photographs, receptions, speeches and enough congratulatory banners to constitute an environmental concern. They came. Celebration has its place. But eventually the music stops, the gown returns to its hanger and the citizen still waits outside the courtroom.

That citizen is the real examination.

Congratulations, Philemon Audu Daffi, SAN. The silk is worthy of celebration. The greater honour will be the injustices confronted, institutions strengthened and lives changed because you wear it. I say to you my friend—You are capable, and you have earned this one, more grace and grit.

Nigeria’s unfinished case remains before us all—May Nigeria win

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Prince Charles Dickson