Fmr. NBA 2nd VP Ubani Withdraws Suit Challenging AGF, Malami’s Amendment Of RPC, Says To Foster Amicable Settlement

The former 2nd Vice President of the Nigerian Bar Association(NBA), Mr. Monday Ubani has disclosed that the suit instituted to challenge the action of the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami to amend the Rules of Professional Conduct is to be withdrawn.

This is contained in a statement issued by him which was made available to TheNigeriaLawyer.

He disclosed that this withdrawal is sequel to him being reached out to by the leadership of the Bar in order to ensure that the matter is amicably settled out of Court.

TNL recalls that Mr. Ubani had earlier dragged the AGF to the Federal High Court in order to challenge the legality of the said amendment.

The statement reads:

INTENTION TO WITHDRAW SUIT NO FHC/CV/1174/2020 AGAINST ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE FEDERATION.

Recall that recently that we took out a legal suit against the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami SAN over the recent unilateral amendment of the Rules of Professional Conduct 2007 for Legal Practitioners.

I took this drastic legal step in conjuction with some of my very learned colleagues in the profession because we deciphered a motive orchestrated to weaken? arguably the umbrella body by the damaging amendments that failed to have the input of the Bar generally through the General Council of the Bar as prescribed by the Legal Practitioners Act.

The unilateral amendment with the consequential intendment to weaken NBA as a professional body was greeted with so much furore and anger for not following procedure as prescribed by the enabling law.

It has come to our notice that the NBA leadership has expressed their reservations about the unilaterial amendment and has sought the reversal of same by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice. They have written a letter to him to withdraw the gazetted Amendment as its effect will create great crisis and confusion within the bar. The purport of the letter is to provide a veritable platform to have the brewing crisis nipped in the bud and resolve the problem amicably.

The leadership of the bar at the highest level have reached out to me to have the law suit withdrawn to avoid an ugly situation where the issue of the case in court will be used as an excuse to scuttle the much anticipated resolution of this unnecessary rumble within our revered body.

As an unrepentant lover of the bar and a principled individual who fights for a cause with God’s wisdom, I have reached out to my colleagues in this struggle for us to have this case withdrawn to allow no reason whatsoever to be given for the failure to arrive at an amicable settlement over the matter.

It is my belief and hope that the Attorney General of the Federation will take into cognizance the larger interest of the bar and move quickly to withdraw the said gazetted Amendment and allow the General Council of the Bar to commence some of the intended amendments that will be highly beneficial to the Bar generally.

I hereby instruct my lawyers to withddaw the said suit in order to allow the anticipated amicable settlement to be exhaustively exploited by both parties.

Long Live the NBA
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Monday Onyekachi Ubani Esq (MOU)
Former Vice President of NBA.