“I was with an SAN some weeks ago and he said to me, what you people call work is what I call play. That’s the truth. Every day, every time, even when I am not in court, I am cross-examining. Every day, I am trying to deduce truths from information that people give me so what’s the difference between what I do in my regular life and in the courtroom? The difference is one gives me money and the other doesn’t.
From back in Secondary school, I realized that once I hate a teacher, I will fail the course. If I don’t like an institution, my performance in that institution will not be good, it will magically come to zero. From that young age, I discovered that I just had to love whatever it was I was going to do for work; and it is really working. God saw my heart and God has really blessed me. I paid my dues but it didn’t look like I was paying dues.
For 8 years, I worked under an SAN and while I was paying my dues, I was having fun. I had a matter which ended late in Ibadan and I was billed to be in Ilorin for another matter the next day and I said to my principal ‘I am sleeping in Ilorin,’ My boss refused, he said he wouldn’t reimburse me for any expense I incurred. I told my boss ‘no wahala’ – I packed my things and headed out to Ilorin. That spirit, that commitment was because I enjoyed doing what I did even though I was paying my dues.
I have been on my own for 4 years now and it’s been all fun for me. I don’t work for money, I work for fun. If money is not your priority, the money will eventually chase you. I was somewhere recently, I was recommended as counsel to oversee a matter. As I stepped into the meeting, the person who was to welcome me told the person who had recommended me to the group that ‘e so wipe omode lawyer le ran wa’. By the time I heard them out and analyzed the issues and proffered solution, the same person said, ‘we originally had it in mind to pay you N100,000 but please help us manage N300,000’.
Me, I just love to enjoy doing what I do and making a good representation of myself when I do. So if I want to make a good representation of myself, it means my utterance must make sense, my appearance must make sense. So someone says please help us manage N200,000 as your filing fees – it is not just about your knowledge and work alone, at that point it is about your representation altogether. Because they see how you have put yourself together, a client will tell you, ‘please help us manage N1million naira’.”
[END]
