Outer Bar’ groups spark activism in NBA
Outer Bar’ groups spark activism in NBA
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Until recently, the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, has always been known for the promotion and protection of human rights, rule of law and good governance in Nigeria. During the military incursion into politics, leaders of the association fought alongside other pro-democracy groups to restore civil rule in the country.https://4b94b272e104a7d562a6978149d0a378.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
The association was also active in holding government to account on several occasions in the past. But just like many other things that have gone wrong with Nigeria, the association has seen its powers whittled down by its leaderships’ questionable association with the political class thereby losing the credibility to question government’s actions.
In the last few months, it however appears that there are attempts by some lawyers outside the leadership of the association to restore the activism spirit for which it was once known for. In a revolt to reposition the association, young lawyers within the NBA, last month led a campaign that resulted in the election of Mr. Olumide Akpata as president of the association. Akpata is one of the few members of the association who is not a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, to be elected as president.https://4b94b272e104a7d562a6978149d0a378.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Few days to the commencement of the ongoing Annual General Conference of the association, some groups of lawyers kicked against the invitation of Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai as speaker at the virtual conference. The protesters who threatened to deregister from participating in the conference observed that it was wrong for the outgoing NBA leadership to give el-Rufai its platform to speak on national issues when he had failed to tackle the senseless killings in the Southern part of Kaduna.
One of the prominent groups in the protest, Open Bar Initiative, in a statement by its convener, Silas Onu while condemning the inclusion of el-Rufai’s name on the list of speakers, noted that is sad that at a time when el-Rufai is playing ostrich with the senseless killings in Kaduna, the NBA is giving him a platform to speak. Onu warned that el-Rufai would certainly use the platform to advance his conflated narrative, designed to deceive and confuse the nation on the real causes of the killings.
In his passionate appeal to the organizers of the conference, Onu insisted that the Kaduna killings cannot be justified as a reprisal by the Governor and that giving him audience at the conference would mean that the NBA was condoning his tactics of wilful maladministration regarding Kaduna South security situation.
Few days after Onu’s letter, more lawyers joined the campaign using social media handles to amplify their demands. A number of lawyers were also reported to have deregistered from participating in the conference. Some senior lawyers like Femi Falana, SAN further sustained the pressure on the NBA exco by insisting that the association should follow the pulse of its members.
Two days after the uprising began, NBA bowed to pressure and announced that el-Rufai would no longer speak at the conference. Expectedly, members who led the campaign were elated. The pressure mounted by the members who ordinarily would not have had a say in NBA’s decision, eventually paid-off. Although some northern members of the association expressed their displeasure and even threatened to boycout the conference, the decision remained irreversible having being endorsed by NEC.
