Love him or hate him, His Excellency, Barrister Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, (NEW), the honourable minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is a top notch Jury Consultant per excellence.
Although, it originates from the United States of America (USA), where trials are by juries, here in Nigeria, the Customary Courts of Appeal, Sharia Courts of Appeal, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court are the superior courts that sit as juries.
In the context of this article, juries refers to these superior courts wherein NEW has developed expertise in obtaining favourable judgments for both himself and his proxies!
The term ‘Jury Consultants’ are defined in the USA as behavioural experts who help legal teams understand jurors and improve trial strategy. They can help with jury selection, witness preparation, and more.
What they do:
Jury selection: Help design voir dire questions and identify juror attitudes and beliefs
Witness preparation: Help witnesses improve their credibility and effectiveness
Theme development: Help develop themes and narratives for the case
Case assessment: Help assess the strengths and vulnerabilities of the case
Mock trials: Help evaluate case strategy through mock trials and focus groups
Jury profiling: Help profile jurors through surveys and social media research
Venue evaluation: Help evaluate and change venues”
Going by his track record, NEW has consistently performed the foregoing and even more.
In the history of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, there is no other non-litigation lawyer like NEW, that has won all his own cases and the cases of his proxies beginning with the case of former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi (RCA)!
It is in the light of the foregoing that an appeal is made for the Council of Legal Education of Nigeria to consider the introduction of Jury Consultancy into the curriculum of contemporary legal education of both the Faculties of Law of Nigerian universities and the campuses of the Nigerian Law School respectively.
Even qualified lawyers should be required to undertake Jury Consultancy as a mandatory continuing legal education course.
This is because majority of Nigerian lawyers and law students are only equipped with theoretical and academic knowledge of the processes of Jury Consultancy.
An understudy of NEW is urgently required so that this skill set should not go to waste.
NEW is a national treasure to the legal profession!
Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja is the Executive Director,Nigerian Law Society (NLS)
