Mike Ozekhome, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), says the plan to carve a faction out of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) will not work. Follow
Mike Ozekhome, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), says the plan to carve a faction out of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) will not work.
Following the controversy that trailed the withdrawal of invitation to Nasir El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State, as a speaker at an NBA conference, some aggrieved lawyers indicated interest to leave the association which they accused of bias. They later announced that they had floated the New Nigerian Bar Association (NNBA).
However, speaking at the virtual annual general meeting of the NBA on Friday, Ozekhome said most members of the bar will resist any attempt to form a parallel association. He said people are “trying to knock the head of NBA members against each other by introducing religious and ethnic connotations to a mere innocuous dis-invitation of my very good friend, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai.”
“For those trying to form an alternative Bar, please, let me use the oxymoron, make haste slowly, don’t go that way. When the tongue and the teeth disagree, inside the same buccal cavity, with the teeth biting the tongue, they sooner than later settle because they need each other for the tongue to help to speak up and for the teeth to help to masticate the food that the tongue itself will enjoy.
“So, drop all these issues of trying to form an alternative bar. Whether you call it New NBA or progressive NBA, it’s not going to work. The progressive forces in this country within the bar, the elders of the bar, most members of not all, senior advocates of Nigeria who know where we are coming from will resist it.”
He said if one faction is formed by aggrieved northerners, soon lawyers from the south, east and west would also want to create their own faction of the bar.
“We will begin to hear of southern Nigeria NNPC, Central Bank, where are we heading to, that is nothing but balkanization of Nigeria. God forbid Afghanistan, God forbid USSR, God forbid Sudan, God forbid Ethiopia, God forbid India-Pakistan and Bangladesh. God forbid another Nigeria-Biafra pogrom.”
Similarly, the newly sworn in NBA president, Olumide Akpata said, “I am not unaware of very recent events and agitations that have tended to divide our Bar along regional and religious lines. This is rather unfortunate for an egalitarian Association like ours. The Bar that I want to lead, henceforth, is one that is united on all fronts and that recognises that our diversity is, perhaps, our greatest strength. I plead with all Nigerian lawyers to bear this philosophy of unity in mind as we commence a new journey together today.”
In the same vein, Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, noted that, although any group of persons could form an association, due to the right to freedom of association, the factionalised NBA might not stand the test of time.
Oyetibo said, “I can’t condemn any group of people who want to form an association because there is freedom of association and it’s their constitutional right. But the NBA has been in existence since the beginning of time and still remains the main focus of Nigerian lawyers. Whether it (New NBA) will stand is another thing.”
He maintained that there was only one association of Nigerian lawyers acceptable to everyone.
“What are their goals? What are their motives for setting up a faction? For now, all lawyers belong to the NBA. The NBA remains the official body acceptable to all lawyers, but if a sectional group arises, it can only remain sectional.”
