Take The Lead Or Take The Blame: Thoughts On The 61st Annual General Conference Of The Nigerian Bar Association

By Raymond Nkannebe

The 61st Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association which held from 22nd to 29th October, 2021 in the historic city of Port Harcourt provided a veritable opportunity for the cream of Nigerian intellectuals to interrogate sundry issues in Nigeria’s development. The Nigerian Bar Association, as the foremost professional membership Association in Nigeria with a broad mandate of promoting the rule of law and good governance in Nigeria has historically deployed its highly attended annual conferences to assess the Nigerian States on all relevant indices with a view to arriving at pragmatic solutions to some of the teething problems bedevelling the Nigerian State. This year’s conference was not an exception. At a time when critical debates dominate the polity on issues around fiscal federalism, state creation, the legitimacy, or otherwise of the 1999 Constitution, etc, the conference provided an avenue for dispassionate interrogation of the issues from a multi-stakeholder viewpoint.

Themed “Taking the Lead “, it was essentially a call to action on legal practitioners and the Nigerian Bar Association to lead the procession in delivering the Nigeria of our collective aspiration. The choice of the theme appears to be an acknowledgement of the dominant role law plays in the development of nations, and the incidental responsibility of legal practitioners across the various intersections between law and society, in shaping that dynamic.

As Governor Nyesom Wike rightly argued in his Address at the conference, law is not just a tool of social control, it is also a tool of socio-economic development. Hence, as His Excellency argued further, if Nigeria has not made any significant progress, then the Nigerian Bar Association merits a significant share of the blame for the less than complimentary state of the nation. By essentially asking the Association to look in the mirror, before demanding action from the citizenry, the host-Governor was throwing the gauntlet back to the legal profession to whom Nigerians look upto, for their socioeconomic emancipation.

Indeed, any conversation around the prospects of such social, political and/or economic emancipation must begin from the Constitution question, which it is believed has remained the bane of Nigeria. In recent months, there has been a resurgence in the clamor for the making of a new Constitution; one that, it is argued, would represent, the consensus of the Nigerian peoples. Not even the ongoing Constitution amendment process by the 9th National Assembly has been able to quell the agitations.

It must be against this backdrop that organizers of the conference took the liberty to design a plenary focused on the vexed Constitution debate. Titled, “We the People: A debate on constitutional amendment “, the session which had as discussants, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, Professor Chidi Odinkalu; Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, Femi Falana, SAN; and Ann Kio-Briggs, and which was eminently moderated by Joe Kyari Gadzama, SAN was unsurprisingly the most engaging of the over twenty technical sessions explored at the conference.

The consensus from that over 3 hour-long debate is clearly that the extant 1999 Constitution is lacking in legitimacy on account of its controversial origins, and may not deliver on its minimum expectations. With the current national status quo, it is understandable why the ranks of the proponents of a new Constitution continues to swell. However, I’ve not been persuaded by such sentiments. It has been, and would continue to be my position that there are no perfect Constitution anywhere in the world, and that constitutions are as as good as the manner of their operation. Thus, the question that remains unanswered is whether the problem with the 1999 Constitution is in its text and texture or, how it has been operated. I’d argue for the latter proposition.

By and large, the Nigerian Bar Association has shown that it is not afraid of interrogating the Nigerian question howsoever delicate. This must stem from the belief that the more we’re eager to confront our demons, we are likely to find ways of living with, or getting around them. I think this is one lesson the Federal Government of Nigeria can learn from the Association in the management of several aspects of our national history, not least, the Biafra question.

But for the conference to be a total success in the manner envisaged by its organizers, then efforts must made to match words with action. As I had pointed out elsewhere, Nigeria’s problem has been over-analysed and theorized by her intellectuals so much that we’re now facing a new problem which I describe as “analysis paralysis”. This year’s conference in spite of its rather laconic theme, packs a punch, as it invites the two arms of the legal profession: the Bench and the Bar, to take the lead in our national crusade.

This is a charge that must not be lost on the legal profession in Nigeria and its membership. If by any means, the contrary becomes the case, then the whole essence of the conference would have been lost. It would be another of those routine “Talk Shops ” where we gather to remind ourselves of our problems; derive some emotional release therefrom, and yet disperse to do nothing about them.

Whatever the case may be this time, would be adjudged by time as well. But the choices before us are not many. To “Take the Lead”, or take the blame.

Raymond Nkannebe, a Lagos-based legal practitioner, is the Secretary of the NBA Editorial Committee.