*Says NBA-SPIDEL Spat As ‘Unnecessary’
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Senior advocate Jibrin Samuel Okutepa has weighed in on the reported disagreement between the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the NBA’s Section on Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL).
In a statement, Okutepa described the public quarrel between the two bodies as “unfortunately unnecessary.” He advised that the various sections of the NBA should be allowed to carry out activities that make the association relevant without interference.
“I think the social media quarrel or leadership tussles between the leadership of NBA and Spidel leadership is in my view, unfortunately unnecessary. Let the various sections of NBA be allowed to do what will make the NBA relevant and beneficial to its members and the society in general,” Okutepa said.
The senior lawyer urged the feuding factions within the NBA to end their public confrontation in the interest of the legal profession and the country. He stated that unnecessary fights over leadership positions will not help the NBA achieve its objectives.
Okutepa asked the parties involved to focus on making tangible impacts that improve legal practice and access to justice rather than struggling over power and control within the association.
The senior advocate also, lamented that the NBA has become “too comfortable with patronizing praise singing at the expense of stark realities in legal practice in Nigeria.” He said the association risks being overshadowed by darkness on all facets.
Okutepa further urged that the incoming NBA leadership must focus on rescuing the legal profession and be ready to step on toes for the good of Nigerians. He advised the association to avoid unnecessary fights over leadership of its various sections.
The senior lawyer also called on the NBA to show more interest in the purity of legal practice, especially with regards to election cases where lawyers file frivolous applications to obstruct justice. He said the NBA has a duty to monitor conduct of lawyers and processes filed in courts.
In conclusion, Okutepa stated that the NBA cannot pretend to have achieved its objectives if it does not move from being a “mere press issuing association to actions based professional association.”
Read his full statement text below.
LET NBA BE SEEN TO BE RELEVANT AND BENEFICIAL TO ALL NIGERIANS AND FOR IT TO AVOID MUNDANE ACTIONS/FIGHTING.
The Nigerian Bar Association is the foremost professional Association of Nigerian lawyers. Lawyers are and ought to be the light and social engineers in any society.Upon admission to the Bar by the Hon. Body of Benchers and after the enrollment at the Supreme Court, every Nigerian lawyer is made to register and pay annual dues to the NBA through the various branches of the Association. The foremost motto or objective of the association is promoting the rule of law.
In addition to this foremost motto, the NBA belongs to and nominates its members to represent it at the various professional bodies of lawyers such as Body of Benchers and the General Council of the Bar. NBA is the foremost professional association in Nigeria. Clearly, the aim of forming the NBA was primarily and principally to fight for the enthronement of the rule of law and ensuring that justice undiluted is delivered for the benefits of Nigerians and Nigerian society. It is also expected that NBA will fight for the benefits, interest and welfare of its members.
In doing so, it is expected that the NBA should be proactive, none-apologist, non-conformist and be non-partisan and do all it can to ensure that none of its members engage in conduct that undermines the rule of law and democratic governance in Nigeria in their practice of law. NBA is expected to be at the forefront and be the vanguard for enthronement of justice in our courts or tribunals and to ensures that judges are not molested and that judges do do anything that appears to cast doubts on the intergrity of judgments they delivered
How has NBA fare in pursuing its objectives objectively and in promoting the rule of law and the purity of justice in Nigeria. Has NBA as a professional Association lived up to the responsibilities, it was formed to carry out. I do not think so.NBA appears in my view to be too comfortable with patronizing praise singing at the expenses of the stark realities in legal practice in Nigeria. It’s gentility not to frontally confronting the reality of our rots has rendered the association non-beneficial to itself and it’s members and even the legal profession. This is not the spirit for the formation of NBA.
Just like so many things in Nigeria, the NBA seems to have been overshadowed by darkness in every facet, has become toothless bulldog that can only bark but cannot bite and it seems to be too preoccupied with mundane issues that hardly advanced the well-being and interest of the generality of its members and the interest of the legal profession.
Too much theoretical achievements that seems to have no practical application of reality.
As concerned and active member of the association I owe a duty to speak. Therefore, as the general election of NBA approaches, there is a need for those who want to lead NBA to be reminded that NBA is much more than an association that merely issues press statements and sound so patronizing of bad system in other to be seen as good body. Let it be known that nobody leading NBA should attribute to himself or herself the all-knowing knowledge and demonstrating and nursing the ideas of being more important than other lawyers.
Any association like NBA that is always in the good book of those who have oppressed the people in the society and those who have lower standards of conduct in the legal profession can not be a good association to be proud of. Therefore, those aspiring to lead NBA must be ready to rescue the legal profession from the state of anything goes we see it today in Nigeria.
For NBA to be relevant, it must be led by those who have clean hands and who are ready to step on toes for the good of Nigerians and the legal profession.
As an aside, I think with respect that NBA needs to avoid the NEEDLESS FIGHT IN LEADERSHIP AND THE LEADERSHIP OF ANY OF THE SECTIONS OF THE ASSOCIATION. I think the social media quarrel or leadership tussles between the leadership of NBA and Spidel leadership is in my view, unfortunately unnecessary. Let the various sections of NBA be allowed to do what will make the NBA relevant and beneficial to its members and the society in general.
NBA as a professional association must act as the guardian and conscience of Nigerians and Nigerian society if it must be taken seriously by right thinking members of the society. It must act and check the excess of those who weild absolute powers in the society.
Flexing muscles in arguments in aid of leadership superiority can not solve the already compromised legal practice in Nigeria.
In this vien, I think it is time for those aspiring to lead the bar to think more of our democracy and how to sustain it.
The kind of legal practice in electoral jurisprudence in defence of election petition cases that seem to be in subversion of democracy in Nigeria needs to be checked by the NBA and this can only be done when we carefully examined the characters and strengthts of those jostling to lead NBA.
The kind of judgments coming out of our courts, which in my humble view are products of compromised recruitment processes, need to be of interest to NBA and its leadership. As of today, lawyers who practice law in Nigeria are members of NBA.NBA, as professional association, must be interested in the purity of legal practice in Nigeria and must have machinery that monitors the conduct of lawyers in the legal practice and be also interested in the processes lawyers file in court.
The way some senior lawyers file all manner of frivolous processes to obstruct justice in our electoral and other justice system needs to be monitored by NBA. Litigation is not a ping pong game. It is not a circus. There must be and ought to be an end to it. Has NBA seriously bother to concern itself with the kind of practice at election petition Tribunals in Nigeria. I do not think so. What lawyers do and filed should concern NBA. There is no doubt that the kind of practice lawyers do and the judgments that come out of our courts and tribunals in electoral disputes have contributed majorly to the dwindling image of the legal profession in Nigeria. NBA can not afford to be less concerned with the feelings of Nigerians.
Most applications filed by some senior lawyers representing those declared by INEC, and for those who have been taken before the Tribunals and / or courts, to all intents and purposes, have set many traps for democratic growth and development. Applications aimed at getting INEC to obey the law of the land and show neutrality and impartiality are always resisted by INEC lawyers and lawyers for supposed winners of elections. The lawyers who filed most of these frivolous processes are members of NBA.
In all cases, INEC lawyers and lawyers of supposed winners of elections and their political parties act as if INEC is a partisan organisation or a branch of those INEC declared as winners.In some instances INEC who condemn processes and conduct of political parties and their candidates that undermined free, fair and credible elections always turn out at the tribunal to collude with the parties declared to obstruct access to electoral materials.Yet NBA has never seen anything wrong with this.
In most cases, you see lawyers filing counter affidavits to application seeking to compel INEC to act in certain ways even when such reliefs are not targeted at them. Accordingly, filing affidavits or counter affidavits in a ‘duel’ that has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with parties or their candidates is a worse species of professional misconduct. I can not conceive of a better example.
I am actually worried over and or concerning the practice in our electoral jurisprudence, which wrongly in my view, permits political parties and their candidates to be aligning with INEC’s arguments/submission in court and vice versa. This has gone on for far too long, but the time for a paradigm shift is now.
We need to recalibrate and realize that the practice is a violation of the constitutional provisions that makes and consecrates INEC as an independent and neutral body, whether as an umpire at the political turf or as a statutory party in the court arena.What is critical in both situations is the need to appreciate that the fight or tussle involves political parties and their candidates.
Therefore, under no circumstances should INEC or a political party be seen or heard to be in any alliance at all or [as is usually the case in court] or any unholy cahoots with each or one another, as the case may be. I have been involved in the practice of election petition for over 3 unbroken decades. What I see counsel representing INEC do or demonstrate in court is to put it mildly, shameful, and less honourable and infamous conduct in professional respect.
Indeed, there is a reason the wise men who drafted our Constitution [let us set aside whatever misgivings we may have about the document for a moment] ensured that the 3rd Schedule to the Constitution lists INEC and embodies elaborate provisions relating to and seemingly providing for its independence and neutrality.
As practitioners of the profession of law, we must desist from deliberate acts and actions calculated at violating these neutrality clauses.The time to elevate our fidelity to the law and obligation to the attainment of justice as well as a just and egalitarian society over the duty we owe our politician clients is now.
What is more, the senior members of the profession, on whom the rank and dignity of the rank of Senior Advocates of Nigeria have been conferred, should and ought to be conscious, at all times, but more particularly when they are involved in the conduct of election related matters in court, of the sacred Oath they took upon being granted the liberty to sit and practice within the Inner Bar of our courts of justice, id est, to faithfully serve the interest of Nigeria by supporting and upholding the Constitution.
Our conduct, in and out of court, must promote and not degrade or abuse this Oath.May God bless our profession and bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria. What Nigerian lawyers do in Court should concern NBA and those jostling to lead us.In other climes, doing your job as a lawyer is no licence to misconducting yourself. The professional associations monitor the conduct of its members and ensure that they are held accountable. NBA must wake up from mere press issuing association to actions based professional association. NBA cannot pretend that it has achieved what it was set up to achieve. It can give itself pass mark but I am unable to award a pass mark to the association. This is my humble but firm view.
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