In this piece, Vanguard Law and Human Rights explores a couple of efforts in the past by lawyers to balkanize the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, including the on-going attempt by the controversial Kunle Ogunba-led Law Society of Nigeria, harvests views of lawyers on compulsory membership of NBA and argues that barring any unforeseen gymnastics, NBA, like a cat with nine lives, will definitely survive the present gathering storm.
Background
By an interim injunction, a Rivers State High Court sitting in Port-Harcourt in 1992 stopped Mrs. Priscilla Kuye-led Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, from going ahead with the election of its principal officers. Certain members of the NBA had approached the court at the time for the injunction following a rumour that certain groups had entered the Conference venue of the NBA in Port-Harcourt with hired thugs, disguised as lawyers, with the alleged aim of achieving a pre-determined outcome at the elections.
At that time, elections into the Executive Committee of the NBA were conducted annually and an incumbent could re-contest for the same Office for a further term of one year only. The previous election of the NBA that held in 1991 at its Owerri conference was won by Chief Clement Akpamgbo, SAN. He was to serve till 1992. But shortly after Akpamgbo was elected the President of the NBA in 1991, the Military President and Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida appointed him (Akpamgbo) Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Federation, AGF. Babangida who held on to power for 7 years and 364 days had earlier gone for Prince Bola Ajibola, SAN, in 1985 shortly after his election as NBA President in 1984.
Mr. Ebele Nwokoye who was then the first Vice-President of the NBA, served out the term of Prince Ajibola as President of the NBA, Chief Priscilla Kuye, as the then first Vice-President of Akpamgbo served out his (Akpamgbo) term as President of the NBA.
Kuye had like Nwokoye did during his time in the 80s’ indicated interest in contesting for the presidential election of the NBA in 1992 after serving out the term of Chief Akpamgbo. Apart from Chief (Mrs.) Priscilla Kuye who was the acting President of the NBA, other contestants for the Presidency were Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, Mr. Segun Onakoya and Mr. Kanmi Ishola Osobu (Peoples’ Law).
For the first time in the history of the Annual General Conference of the professional body of lawyers in the country, election into the Office of the President of the NBA had taken a political colouration which made the ensuing campaign more tense than ever. For instance, the accreditation of voters at the election was delayed and the Executive Committee which ought to have been dissolved preparatory to the elections was not dissolved.
When Chief Gani Fawehinmi was recognized to address the Conference, the microphone was seized from him. In the ensuing confusion, Chief Kuye was forced to adjourn the election sine die when she was served with an interim injunction issued by a Port-Harcourt High Court which ordered the suspension of the election.
The epochal judicial intervention threw the NBA – at least its national body – into a state of abeyance, until the Federal Government intervened by promulgating the Legal Practitioners (Amendment) Decree No. 21 of 1993.
Lawyers mull formation of new association
While the confusion created by the Port-Harcourt crisis lasted, Prince Richard Ahonaruogho, SAN, mulled the idea of forming another association of professional lawyers to take over from where the highly politicised NBA stopped. According to Ahonaruogho, “The idea was to save the NBA from self-destruction after the 1992 Port Harcourt crises and we have over the years reviewed the need to keep the Nigerian lawyers under the main umbrella of NBA,” he said.
Legal practitioners in Nigeria had been regulated solely under the umbrella of NBA founded in 1933. As of July 2021, the number of lawyers produced in the country was 197,105.
The first conscious effort to create another association of professional lawyers by Ahonaruogho and others was therefore, not to balkanize the NBA but to save it from self-destruction.
But there have been failed attempts to split the association, including the August 2020 move by two lawyers, Mr. Nuhu Ibrahim and Mr. Abdulbasit Suleiman, to form the New Nigerian Bar Association (NNBA). Vanguard reports that some aggrieved northern members of the NBA had pulled out of the association after the withdrawal of the invitation of Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna, as a speaker at its conference in 2020.
The group in a letter to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, dated August 28, 2022, by Nuhu Ibrahim and Abdulbasit Suleiman, first and second conveners respectively, said the national executive council of the NBA “failed to take into consideration our national interests. We are pleased to inform you of the formation of a new Association of Lawyers as above captioned. The formation of the new Association has become imperative and expedient especially flowing from the activities, disposition and most recently, the decision of the Nigerian Bar Association-NEC (National Executive Committee) which apparently failed to take into consideration our national interests and particularly do not promote the unity of our indissoluble country, Nigeria,” the letter reads.
The decision to withdraw el-Rufai invitation, it will be recalled was taken at the pre-Annual General Conference, National Executive Council, NEC, AGC-NEC of the association. They said NNBA members were in consultations with “very senior lawyers of Northern Nigeria extraction and those practising therein with a view to constituting the trustees and for purposes of fixing date for formal inauguration of the Association.”
El-Rufai’s exclusion stirred a controversy with mostly northern or Muslim lawyers condemning the NBA National Executive Committee’s decision. They had petitioned the NBA to ensure fairness by withdrawing its speakership invitations to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike — but the request was turned down.
The NNBA also claimed that the NBA offices were lopsided against Northern lawyers, among other grievances.
The NNBA, in its statement, said: “The New Nigerian Bar Association has been watching the activities of the NBA, an association we all looked forward to joining with high hopes before being called to the Nigerian Bar, forcing idiosyncrasies of few on the majority of its members especially in recent times.
“No wonder, NBA NEC, which is the highest decision-making organ of the Association failed to uphold the fundamental principles of fair hearing which in itself, is the fundamental aspect of Rule of Law, on the allegations against the Executive Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai as were contained in a petition by Chidi Odinkalu Esq., a long time foe of His Excellency and a lawyer of eastern extraction.
“But the NBA failed to extend the same treatment to Southern invitees who were also petitioned and are also alleged to have committed similar or more human rights abuses than those alleged against Mallam El-Rufai.”
According to them, membership of the NBA is not mandatory, adding that Section 40 of the Constitution of permits freedom of association.
They added: “The New Nigerian Bar Association members, gleaning from the above Constitutional provision feel that their interests are no longer taken into consideration in major decisions of the NBA, hence the formation of this Association.
“A cursory chronicle of the membership composition of major organs of the NBA would reveal lopsided representation despite having large numbers of Lawyers from all parts of the country and especially Northern Nigeria who have diligently paid their Bar practicing fees and have distinguished themselves in the legal profession.
“The New Nigerian Bar Association feels that, Lawyers, as professionals like Doctors and Accountants should have more than one Association regulated by the General Council of the Bar.”
They stated further that the Legal Practitioners Act (LPA) which regulates the legal profession in Nigeria did not establish the NBA.
“In fact, the NBA was established as an Incorporated Trustee by Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC.
“It is no longer gainsaying that a group of Lawyers can freely join any lawful Association for the protection of their rights and interests as Lawyers and citizens of Nigeria pursuant to the above cited Section 40 of the Constitution. Even Section 1 of the Legal Practitioners Act, which seemingly conscripted all Lawyers in Nigeria to Mandatory Membership of NBA is, for all intents and purposes, at loggerheads with Section 40 of the Constitution which makes the former null and void and of no effect whatsoever.
Northern lawyers’ agenda splits NBA
The position of the Northern lawyers had divided the body of lawyers into two opposing camps with some supporting them while majority claimed they would not succeed. For instance, a Senior member of the inner bar, Mr Samuel Okutepa, SAN, had, at the time, said the NNBA’s move was not surprising considering recent happenings in the Bar.
He had argued that many honest lawyers were disenchanted because the NBA had lost its values, and the NNBA members had the constitutional right to form another association.
”If you have read me in several papers – myself, Femi Falana and several others – we have spoken sufficiently to the Constitutional iniquities of making Nigerian lawyers to be members of the NBA, particularly that the NBA has lost its value. So, if any lawyer feels aggrieved that he wants to form a new association, what stops them from doing so?
“That is within their rights under Section 40 of the Constitution. So, I do not share the views of those who say you must be forced to be a member of the NBA. I don’t share that view. We have chosen to be members of the NBA because we believe that the NBA will live up to the standard of its motto, which is promoting the rule of law.
But in the past years, have you seen NBA promoting rule of law or rule of personal aggrandisement?
(Vanguard)
