As Bar Elders Wade Into Awomolo, Akpata Rift

Peace is reportedly on the way in the constant friction between Chief Adegboyega Awomolo and the president of the Nigeria Bar Association, Olumide Akpata. YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE seeks answers to the issue Bar elders are confronting on the matter.

When Lagos-based lawyer, Olumide Akpata, assumed office as the 30th president of the Nigeria Bar Association on August 28, 2020 after what was considered a landslide victory and defeating two SANs in an online election, many junior lawyers were elated.

Akpata had, according to the chairman of the Electoral Committee of the NBA, Tawo Tawo (SAN), polled 9,891 votes accounting for 54.3 per cent of all the votes cast to defeat his closest contender, Dr Babatunde Ajibade (SAN), who scored 4328 votes and another SAN, Dele Adesina, who polled 3982.

And while his emergence was a surprise to some, many had attributed the mass voting for him from predominantly junior counsels as the result of a perceived supremacy battle between the Outer and the Inner bar as young lawyers in determination and seeming protest voted massively for a non-SAN to occupy the office.

Their action was in seeming protest to a letter, earlier written by the Secretary of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), during the electioneering period, raising alarm that young lawyers were about to “revolutionise” the NBA by voting a non-SAN and pleading with senior lawyers to rise to the occasion and stop the development.

Indeed, the letter was counterproductive as it made its way into the public domain and pitched many young lawyers against the other two contenders, paving the way for Akpata, the only non-SAN in the race, to win.

Two of the three presidential aspirants in the election had, at the time, rejected the call for the reservation of the position of the president of the association exclusively for SANs. Chief Awomolo’s letter to a former NBA President, Chief T.J.O Okpoko (SAN), intimating him of an alleged “unannounced but powerful and potent revolutionary move by our junior collages who are very much in larger numbers to wrestle the office of the NBA from the rank of SAN” seems to be the deciding factor in favour of Akpata as it created an uproar.

It was however not only junior lawyers that felt Chief Awomolo’s stand was wrong, his fellow learned silks, including those in the contest with Akpata also faulted his belief on the issue of only a SAN occupying the position of NBA president. Ade Okeanya Inneh (SAN) had stated that being a senior advocate is not and should not be the only criterion for aspiring to the position of president of the Bar association, adding that Akpata was eminently qualified to aspire to the position and delivery of high quality legal services in the 21st century should be what is on the front burner and not whether or not an aspirant to the presidency of the Bar is a senior advocate.

On his part, Godwin Omoaka (SAN) expressed shock at Chief Awomolo’s letter, adding that ”as a member of the inner bar, I strongly disagree with the views expressed by my respected leader and learned brother silk who appears to have lost touch with the current trend in the profession. The letter offends section 8 of the NBA Constitution; it is ill-thought out and clearly divisive. I see it as an attempt to pitch SANs against the majority of our colleagues in the outer bar. To be clear, SANs constitute less than one per cent of the membership of the NBA and it would be illogical to suggest, even if faintly, that the presidency of the NBA should be the exclusive preserve of SANs.”

One of the candidates during the election, Dr Babatunde Ajibade (SAN), had declared that there was nothing to support the claim that the office of president of the NBA is the exclusive preserve of senior advocates, adding that the focus should be on the character, capacity and antecedent of persons who aspire to lead the profession.

Another contestant, Dele Adesina (SAN) who had, after the election, faulted the electoral process and called for its cancellation on allegations that many voters did not receive the link to vote, earlier expressed the view that the association was at a critical point in history where unity of purpose and synergy among lawyers is in desperate need and as such it is not a time for members to instigate division either among the senior members of the Bar and juniors or among the senior advocates and non – senior advocates, adding that the association is for the benefit of all members irrespective of position or ilk.

But Akpata emerged to the joy of the Outer Bar and everyone believed the matter had been rested until Chief Awomolo raised issues over Akpata’s remarks at the commencement of the new legal year in another letter addressed to the Secretary of the Body of Benchers and copied to over 100 members of the body where he referred to Akpata as “immature,” among other things.

Akpata had, while citing a series of instances in which certain members of the association have been taking deliberate steps to undermine the NBA and whittle down its influence, referred to a recent attempt by some members of the Bar to influence the National Assembly to pass into law a Legal Practitioners’ Bill that ostensibly contemplates a possible division of the NBA through the incorporation of another body for lawyers in Nigeria,

noting that the said version of the Bill was different from the version that he was acquainted with.

In his response to an email notice to attend an extra-ordinary meeting of the Body of Benchers scheduled for December 13, 2021, Awomolo had declined attendance on the ground that ”… I do not intend to participate in any further discussion on the request for retracting of the Bill before the National Assembly,” adding that he took exception to the fact that Akpata used the occasion of the opening of Legal Year at the Supreme Court to suggest that the draft harmonised Bill was intended to sabotage or compromise the integrity and independence of the NBA, whittle down the authority of the association and enhance that of the Body of Benchers. He had added that Akpata’s remarks were ”very uncouth and sarcastic… unkind and uncharitable, smacks of immaturity and insulting…”

In reaction, the NBA National Executive Committee (NEC) condemned the perennial attack by Awomolo on Akpata at the NEC Meeting in Abeokuta. The communiqué of the meeting said the NBA NEC “frowned on and unequivocally condemned the unwarranted attack on the president of the NBA by Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN and declared that the President of the NBA, Olumide Akpata, has the total support of all members of the association in the discharge of their collective mandate.”

Some lawyers suggested that the NBA sanctioned Awomolo though Akpata had expressed the sentiment that being an elder, the open correction that NEC had given Awomolo was punitive.

Nigerian Tribune tried to speak with Awomolo and Akpata but they did not respond to questions on the issue. Their silence could be due to recent efforts to resolve the issue as Dr Monday Onyekachi Ubani told Nigerian Tribune that bar leaders were moving to mend the rift. According to him, “I don’t think that is a problem. I think it is a measure of misunderstanding. But, I think the leaders at the bar have started intervening. There is no dichotomy in the bar. We don’t have it. We don’t recognise it. I can assure you that they would sort it out. I had been in a place where conversation is ongoing and they said there should not be any problem between the NBA president and other members of the bar.”

Chief Yomi Alliyu (SAN), however, has a different opinion. “There can’t be any imbroglio between the president of the Bar and any senior lawyer. Chief Awomolo is a respected, respectable and responsible senior that had paid his dues. He is a doyen of the Bar! He commands respect among all members of the Bar and a mentor to many seniors and juniors! Respect for the office of the President is different from the age at the Bar. What you are calling imbroglio is what happens when there’s a departure from the norm in appointing someone outside the traditional setup. So many people had been president outside the inner Bar but the current president came in on schism vigorously preached between juniors and members of the Inner Bar. He won on that. He has to rule by it,” he said.

A former chairman of the Ikeja branch of the association, Dave Ajetomobi said “my view is that Baba needs to cool down, he is part of the Yoruba leadership of the Bar that created the problem that gave rise to the emergence of Alegeh and Akpata. I’m aware that Alegeh told the South-West bar leadership that if the west can put forward a single candidate, he would step down, instead of dealing with the situation as it was. Each of them has preferred candidates, about three Yoruba candidates contested against Austin Alegeh and of course he defeated them. I knew this because I was involved on the side of a candidate in that election.

“Alegeh introduced electronic voting system which changed the power dynamics and configuration of the NBA till today. If you don’t belong to the group that is holding the NBA key no matter how popular you are you can’t win except for divine intervention. Presently that key is in the mid-west which has produced Austin Alegeh (SAN) and Akpata. Chief Awomolo is venting his anger on Akpata for reasons best known to him; I am not competent to say whatever is responsible. One of the issues that worked in favour of Akpata was the letter written by Chief Awomolo that non-SANs should not be allowed to lead the Bar; it backfired badly against our front runner, the young lawyers who are internet savvy capitalised on it to campaign against SANs in 2020. I tell you, Yoruba have serious issues! Was it not the Yoruba SANs who wrote to the CJN that the number of SANs is too much? Yoruba once dictated what happened in the NBA but due to our leaders’ inability to put our collective interest before personal interests, Yoruba are now playing second fiddle in the NBA. Instead of these sporadic outbursts against Akpata, I think learned Chief will do better by focusing on putting the southwest Bar in order so we wouldn’t be losing out whenever any position is zoned to the west which is made up of the west and mid-west.”

Editors Note; Written By YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE Originally published in Tribuneonlineng.