*Says “NBA Is Not The Private Estate Of Any Regional Bloc, Political Family, Former President Or Professional Cabal”
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M.D. Idris, Esq., of the Lagos Branch, has published a critical assessment of the tenure of the 32nd President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mazi Afam Josiah Osigwe, SAN, arguing that he leaves behind an Association more divided than he met it and an electoral process that has forfeited the confidence of its members.
The piece, titled “Farewell To Afam Osigwe, The 32nd President Of The Nigerian Bar Association: A Legacy Of Mistrust And A Bar Left Divided,” was published as the outgoing President handed over in Port Harcourt to Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN.
Idris opened by explaining why he was departing from the customary form of a farewell.
“Every administration is entitled to present its own version of history, but no administration is entitled to write that history alone. Those who witnessed the events, endured the controversies and observed the consequences also have a duty to place their assessment on record,” he wrote.
He set out the standard he was applying. “Leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association is not a ceremonial entitlement. It is a position of trust. The President is temporarily entrusted with the voice, dignity, unity and institutional reputation of the foremost association of lawyers in Nigeria. The office carries an obligation to rise above factions, friendships, regional calculations and succession interests.”
He acknowledged the activity of the tenure. “His tenure will be remembered for many public interventions and institutional activities. There were conferences, committees, policy statements, engagements with government and pronouncements on the administration of justice. No fair-minded person should pretend that nothing was done.”
He then stated his test. “However, an administration is not ultimately judged by the number of events it organised or the elegance of its public statements. It is judged by the condition in which it leaves the institution. On that score, the verdict is deeply troubling.”
Idris wrote that the outgoing President inherited an Association already suffering from a crisis of confidence in its electoral system, with complaints about electronic voting, the integrity of voters’ lists and the influence of entrenched interests predating his tenure.
“His administration therefore had a historic opportunity to break with the past, rebuild confidence and establish a succession process so transparent that even the losing candidates would have little basis to question it,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, that opportunity was squandered.”
He continued: “Instead of bequeathing to the Bar an election that restored faith in its democratic institutions, his administration supervised what must rank among the most distrusted and divisive electoral processes in the history of the Association.”
He said the complaints could not be dismissed as marginal. “These were not complaints whispered by obscure malcontents. They came from senior and respected members of the profession, candidates, regional bodies and stakeholders who could not simply be dismissed as enemies of the administration.”
Idris argued that the response required of the leadership was more than a denial of wrongdoing.
“In matters of public and institutional trust, actual impartiality is not enough; impartiality must be visible. When members reasonably suspect that the referee is interested in the outcome of a contest, the proper response is not to insult their intelligence or ask them to accept assurances of neutrality. The process must be opened, independently reviewed and restructured in a manner that puts the doubts to rest.”
He said the outgoing President’s declaration that he had no preferred candidate, and that he would abstain from voting, did not answer the complaints.
“Personal abstention could not answer institutional questions about the committee, the service provider, the voters’ list, authentication safeguards or the administration’s handling of complaints,” he wrote. “The issue was never simply whether the President personally clicked a button for a candidate. The issue was whether the machinery over which his administration presided inspired confidence across the competing camps. It did not.”
Idris pointed to the litigation that accompanied the process, including orders of the High Court of Oyo State restraining certain electoral activities before appellate proceedings altered the position.
“The mere fact that an appellate court subsequently cleared the way for the election does not erase the institutional disorder that brought the Association to that point,” he wrote. “Nor does it answer the deeper question: how did the leadership of the Bar permit its succession process to deteriorate into a battlefield of injunctions, appeals, accusations of imposition and threats of institutional rupture?”
He said the contradiction was the most damaging feature of the tenure. “Lawyers who routinely lecture the political class about electoral integrity could not agree on the integrity of their own election. An Association that condemns electoral bodies for opacity could not convincingly assure its own members that its process was beyond manipulation.”
Idris addressed the dispute with the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, following whose intervention a committee was constituted, with recommendations reported to have included postponement of the election, reconstitution of the electoral machinery, replacement of the service provider and stronger voter verification.
He accepted that the Association’s legal position was arguable. “On a narrow legal analysis, there was room for a legitimate debate about the extent of the Attorney-General’s powers and whether a mediator could impose binding directions upon parties to a dispute. The independence of the NBA from governmental control is undoubtedly worth defending.”
But he faulted the manner of the response. “Even a legally arguable position can be expressed with institutional restraint. Independence does not require discourtesy. Disagreement does not justify contemptuous treatment of an important constitutional office. The office of the Attorney-General of the Federation is larger than its present occupant, just as the office of NBA President is larger than Afam Osigwe.”
He said the substance of the complaints went unanswered. “The Attorney-General’s recommendations might not have been legally binding, but were the concerns about voter verification, the electoral committee and the service provider entirely without merit? If those concerns were unfounded, why did they resonate with so many members of the profession?”
He added: “Independence must never become a shield for institutional impunity. The NBA cannot demand accountability from the government while resisting scrutiny of its own affairs. It cannot condemn the Independent National Electoral Commission for failing to earn public confidence while telling lawyers that they must accept an election merely because an electoral committee declared a result.”
Idris described the election as the defining failure of the tenure.
“A leader may not be responsible for every allegation made during his tenure, but he is responsible for how he responds to a crisis of confidence,” he wrote. “He instead presided over an election whose legality may ultimately survive judicial examination, but whose legitimacy will remain disputed in the minds of many lawyers.”
He drew the distinction expressly. “Legality and legitimacy are not always the same. A process may escape nullification and yet fail the test of public confidence. Courts determine legal rights on the evidence and issues placed before them; they cannot manufacture the trust that an electoral process failed to earn.”
He set out what he considers the inheritance. “A Bar fractured along regional and political lines; a membership increasingly suspicious of its electoral institutions; respected elders publicly trading accusations; and an Association whose claim to lecture Nigeria on credible elections has been substantially weakened. That is no small legacy.”
Idris said the office carries no interest in the succession. “An NBA President is not elected to create a dynasty or determine his successor. He is elected to serve for a fixed period and to hand the Association over to whoever freely emerges from a process trusted by its members.”
He continued: “The moment an outgoing administration is perceived as protecting a ‘ruling house’ or facilitating the succession of a favoured camp, the democratic spirit of the Association is endangered. Whether every allegation of imposition can be proved is not the only point. The damaging fact is that the administration failed to dispel the perception through an indisputably open and trusted process.”
He also identified what he called a contradiction between public advocacy and internal conduct. “He often spoke eloquently about the rule of law, judicial integrity, democratic accountability and institutional independence. Yet the true test of those principles is not when they are invoked against government. It is when they inconvenience one’s own administration. A commitment to the rule of law that operates only against others is not principle; it is convenience.”
Idris wrote that the piece was not a celebration but a lamentation.
“Afam Osigwe possessed the professional stature, experience and platform to heal the Bar. He could have dismantled the perception that NBA elections are controlled by a small and recurring establishment. He could have introduced a transparent electoral framework supported by independent audit, verifiable voter accreditation and broad stakeholder confidence. He could have left behind an Association more united than he met it. Instead, his final months became consumed by a battle over who would succeed him and whether the process could be trusted.”
He added: “Perhaps he will recognise that victory over critics is not the same thing as vindication by history. Perhaps he will come to understand that an election is not credible merely because it was held and a winner announced. The deepest measure of an election is the confidence of those who participated in it.”
Idris directed his closing counsel to the new leadership.
“It must not govern as the beneficiary of a factional triumph. It must urgently rebuild confidence in the electoral institutions of the Association, review the processes that produced this crisis and reassure every section of the Bar that the NBA is not the private estate of any regional bloc, political family, former president or professional cabal,” he wrote.
He added: “Reconciliation must not mean suppressing legitimate grievances. It must begin with an honest acknowledgment that serious mistakes were made.”
He closed with a farewell and a qualification. “We wish him well in his personal and professional endeavours. But wishing him well does not require us to falsify the record. Courtesy must not become historical amnesia.”
He ended: “Afam Osigwe did not merely hand over the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association. He handed over a wounded and divided Bar, burdened by an electoral process that should never again be repeated. Farewell, Mr President. The tenure has ended, but the mistrust it created will take much longer to heal.”
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