By Abdulrasheed Ibrahim
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Many views have been expressed by members of the legal profession on the just concluded 65th Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA-AGC) held at the International Conference Centre in,Enugu, Enugu State during the last week of the month of August with the theme: Stand Out , Stand Tall. As one of the participants at the conference, I believe it will not be out of place sharing my own personal experiences at the event. The incumbent leadership of the NBA deserves great commendation for put up a wonderful conference with the array of personalities in attendance. With the opening ceremony chaired by His Eminence ,Alhaji Muhammadu Saâad Abubakar III, CFR, the Sultan of Sokoto, I was particularly impressed by the keynote address delivered by Mr Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EEF) of South Africa. His address answered the question of XENOPHOBIA in South Africa which has long been a source of worry for many of us that despite the active participation of African countries in dismantling the Apartheid in South Africa, why must some South African youths be rewarding other Africans residing in that country with this thing called âXENOPHOBIAâ. Malema was very instructive on this when he said:
ââŚNigerian musicians, filmmakers, and writers influence South African culture, just as South African universities and industries provide platforms for Nigerian talents. But this cooperation has been uneven and atimes marred by suspicion and the painful existence of xenophobia. Let me be unequivocal here: xenophobia is a betrayal of the African unity .It is a sickness born of poverty, inequality, and government failure, but its victims are our African brothers and sisters. Nigerians, Zimbabweans, Congolese, and Somalis are not the cause of South Africanâs unemployment crisisâŚâ
In further appreciating the role played by our country , Nigeria during the Apartheid in South Africa , Malema said : â When South Africa was shackled by apartheid , when our people were murdered , imprisoned , and denied basic humanity , Nigeria rose as giant for justice placing South Africa squarely at the centre of its foreign policy, Former President General Murtala Mohammed famously declared that Africa had come of age , that the continent would no longer tolerate interference from outside power , and this still rings true todayâ. This assertion coming from Malema has truly showed that he is a student of history and therefore we urge him that the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) which he is leading in the South Africa must teach and instil sense of history on the South African youths who lack the knowledge of history on what other Africans had done during the apartheid to liberate the South Africa. They must do away with xenophobia against other Africans or any citizen from other continents of the world. Mr Julius Malemaâs message to African countries on unity and cooperation was very loud and clear. He got an overwhelming ovation from the Nigerian lawyers at the conference after delivering his keynote address.
The opening plenary at the conference was equally very interesting with the topic : â It is the Economic, Stupid!”. This was moderated by Mr Seun Okinbaloye of the Channel Television which saw the likes of Messr. Olubunmi Tunji âOjo, Gabriel Okeowo, George Etomi and Dr Oby Ezekwesili at the centre stage brainstorming on the issue of the nationâs economy as to whether it is the economic that is stupid? When the question was eventually thrown to the lawyers in the audience by Mr Okinbaloye that with the present reality of state of economy in the country, whether today has been better than about three years ago, the answer from the audience was loudly in the negative. As for those reacting to the question otherwise, they are also entitled to their views on the state of the economy since those at the helm of affairs have themselves acknowledged the fact that there is truly hardship in the land and are calling on the Nigerians to endure the hardship which according to them is like a woman in the labour room. With the call for such endurance by the government, one hopes those in government themselves will also try to lead by example, as it will amount to hypocracy preaching austerity to the led while the leaders are living in affluence. Dr Ezekwesiliâs parting words with lawyers at the plenary was very blunt, hard and straight to the point when she said:
â I am glad you guys are here to listen to me and may be you wonât invite me again after I have gone .You represent the heartbeat of professionalism in our country. In any society, I think it important that we donât laugh through the condition that we found ourselves as people , you are the best of minds , anyone who is able to train and become a lawyer in Nigeria represents the elite of our society. What is going on is an abandonment of the responsibilities by the elites of our country . The truth is that people of this country, the larger population of the poor are almost trapped in intractable poverty. Some 133 million are perniciously in that state of poverty. One thing that is fundamental are the choices that we make as people and guess what, the lawyers determine the rule of law of this society and what is rewarded , what is punished at the heart of it
âThe question that I hope your conference this year would force each of you to ask is should there be an evaluation of what our profession has done to provide the necessary guide rails for behaviour of our political class? You itâs not to be that we as the privileged class, for as long as you are educated, you are a privileged class. We need to understand that this society lays prostrate for the poor right now, some 133 million of them, that a distorted , incentive society is making it impossible for them to actually have a quality of life that is close enough to just being normal and therefore I am praying that as the legal profession you can agree that there is serious distortion that are making it difficult for incentive to align in the direction where hard work is rewarded .This country has to go back to rewarding hard work. This idea that the politics is the pathway to become wealthy is an anomaly. Any profession that is rewarding this kind of prebendalist behaviour cannot be a profession that cares about tomorrow .But I do know that some of you are some of the best minds we have in this society. So stop trading this profession, stop giving this profession to the bunch of lousy politicians that want to destroy the generation here and unborn. Donât invite me again; even if you invite me again I may not come again.â
When the argument was raging on whether it was the nationâs economy that was stupid, I was wondering in my mind why the question was not put as : âIs the nationâs economy or the nationâs leaders stupid?â Honestly, it is the stupidity that has been on for long in this country on the part of leaders and the led that has brought us to this point we found ourselves today. The larger percentage of the blame rests squarely on the leaders as if the leaders have been living up to expectations and getting it right, who are the led not to follow suit? We have a wonderful country that is so blessed with everything good by the nature, but are those in positions of leadership exploiting those things to the advantage of the rest of us?
Many of us from Lagos branch of the NBA travelled together to Enugu in a bus. As you journey along the road, you are marvelled with vast lands this country is blessed with and nothing is happening on those lands. Before entering Benin City along the expressway, you see a very large palm tree plantation which a colleague, (Adebola Lema, Esq.) who graduated from the University of Benin said personally belonged to the late Chief (Brigadier). Samuel Ogbemudia , a former military Governor of the old Bendel State. Then I began to ask myself the question that if such farm plantation could be owned by an individual , what is the problem with the State Government entering into similar venture at least to create job opportunity for the teeming unemployed youths in that State? If you travel through the length and breadth of this country from the North to the South or from the East to the West , there you will see vast and fertile lands everywhere but most of the State Governments in charge of those lands are not interested in the massive mechanized farming where you can have different kinds of farm plantations and settlements which is more the reason why the criminals and terrorists have turned those lands and forest into their hideouts terrorising the nation and its citizens .But we were in Enugu asking the question whether the economy is stupid, when we should be telling those leaders at the helm of affairs to do the right thing to improve and better the economy of the country.
Many brilliant and intellectual papers were delivered at different sections and fora during the conference. It will be proper those papers are made available and accessible to lawyers by the NBA leadership .So far so good, the current National Officers of the NBA under the leadership of Mazi Afam Ozigwe SAN seems to be getting their acts right unlike what we have witnessed in the past. There is yet to be any cry of marginalization and one hopes and prays there will not be any before the end of their tenure. Their respective mid-term reports have been very impressive. We should not pretend that there is a total unity in the NBA. There are young and old lawyers still nursing one grudge or the other against the NBA. I believe it is now the duty of the incumbent leadership of the NBA to reach out to those aggrieved lawyers and bar leaders that have distanced themselves from the activities of NBA. We need to let every lawyer know that this association belong to all of us. I am of the view that if Mazi Afam Ozigwe SAN can lead his National Officers on courtesy visits to many of these bar leaders that are aggrieved and strive to bring them back into the fold, that will be a watershed in the history of the Nigerian Bar Association. His regime will surely be regarded a unifier. Those bar leaders can equally reciprocate by being in attendance in the next year NBA annual general conference tentatively fixed for Port Harcourt .There is no doubt that the mistakes have been made in the past and lessons have been learnt.
Some of our colleagues have formed a group known as Advocacy for Bar Licence Freedom (ABLIF). I am of the view that the NBA leadership should continue to engage them in discussions to really know their needs and grievances so as to know the better way to manage the issue of Continuing Legal Education (CLE) and Continuing Professional Development (CPD). We must all embrace dialogue rather than confrontation. NBA needs unity than anything else. One of the interesting areas in which NBA has been promoting unity is through the football competition among its numerous branches. I want to suggest to the NBA leadership that there is the need for a change to the present style or system which appears to be very boring. For the purpose of the Annual General Conference, it better we have Inter-States Bar Football Competition rather than Inter-Branches Football Competition. How can this be done? Let the NBA branches within a particular state be having inter-branches matches to select their best footballers to form a particular State Bar Football team. For instance, if Lagos State Bar Football Team is formed it may if it wins during the preliminaries among other States eventually compete with Enugu State Bar Football Team if it also qualifies during the preliminaries at the annual conference. That means the best two states’ bar teams will play the final. With this procedure that means we will have maximum of 36 States Bar Football Teams and that of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja that will compete in the Football competition. This method can equally be applied to other sports of interest.
No matter how learned lawyers may claim to be , when you get to the NBA AGC and attend any of the sections or fora you will surely learn one new thing or the other. It was at the breakout session of Lawyers in Media (LIM) Forum that I came aware that Nigeria was the first country in world to in May 2023 established a tribunal now known as the Advertising Offences Tribunal being presided over by a retired Judge of the Federal High Court with other four members in the panel. The tribunal was established under the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) Act 2022. In the keynote address : titled: “The Advertising Offences Tribunal (AOT) and Media Practice in Nigeria: Emerging Issuesâ that was delivered at the session on behalf of Chief Akinlolu Kehinde,SAN, the Learned Silk said:
âThe AOT is the first of its kind in the world. The AOT is a specialised judicial body established to try advertising offences. Unlike regulatory bodies elsewhere in the world, for example; the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK, the Federal Trade Commission in the US, or the Advertising Regulatory Board of South Africa, the AOT is conferred with criminal jurisdiction to try advertising offences. AOT has exclusive jurisdiction over all advertising offences under the ARCON Act and the Nigerian Code of Advertising Practice. It can impose fines and issue search warrant.â
The panel at the breakout session which included Dr Monday Ubani, SAN, Mr. Charles Odenigbo of the Centre for Media Law Development and Dr. Olalekan Fadolapo,the Director General of the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) put up brilliant and intellectual discussions on emerging issues in that area of law. The keynote address and the knowledge shared at that session will be of great benefit to all lawyers particularly those in the media as well as those involving in writing,publishing and general communication practice. Mr. Adam Adedimeji , the Chairman of the Lawyers in the Media with his teams did a good job coordinating the session. Other breakout sessions I attended including that on the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) where it was suggested the decision of Court of Appeal should be final on issue relating to appeal on arbitration dispute.The breakout session of the Lawyers with Disability was equally very interesting and wonderful. The NBA-AGC books’ exhibition stand was another place of interest where many law book publishers and information technology providers on law came to display their goods and services for the patronage of lawyers but whether lawyers were adequately interested in buying books at the conference is a story for another .
This year NBA-AGC was largely a great success and any lapses that might have been observed can still be improved upon in the next one by the NBA leadership and those committees involved in its preparation and execution.Kudo to them all.
NOTE: Anyone is at liberty to disagree with my above submissions as I will surely appreciate a balanced, fair and objective rebuttal.
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