FORMER Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice of Abia State during the administrations of governors Theodore Orji and Okezie Ikpeazu, between 2009 and 2015, Umeh Kalu (SAN), has described the current disagreement within the Nigeria Bar Association and the threat by some lawyers to float a rival bar association, tagged New Nigeria Bar Association (NNBA), as unfortunate and a reflection of the degeneration in the larger Nigerian society.
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Reacting to the current face-off, Umeh told The Nation on Saturday that the development is also distracting. “The threat by some lawyers to come up with a parallel Bar Association because of the alleged disagreement is uncalled for; it’s really distracting. It further goes to show how polarised; how divided the country has become, which is equally unfortunate. It is a reflection of the mind-set of the larger society that we are actually not working as a unit.”
Umeh also admonished his colleagues to remember that the bar should always remain the conscience of the society even as he expressed regret that over the years, NBA, as a body, has lost its bite.
Asked if the reactions are not a direct outcome of suppressed politics in NBA, he said: “Even if there are some underlying politics in the bar; it should be within the bar. We should not allow extraneous factors to determine the things we do at the bar.
And if the main cause of the disagreement, as they alleged, is the withdrawal of an invitation to Governor El’Rufai, my first reaction is that the outburst is not necessary because the group that is today saying they were not consulted before the withdrawal of the said invitation to NBA programme was not consulted before the invitation was made in the first instance. It was an internal bar’s affairs and it was the decision of the NEC, the highest organ of the NBA, apart from an Annual General Meeting. So, the decision of the NEC, considering its strata, could not have been based on religious or North-South divide.”
On the division amongst lawyers, especially Senior Advocates, on the development, Umeh said “it is the way lawyers react to issues, adding that they are all entitled to their right told opinion but cautioned; “but we have to move forward.”
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