Leadership is about everything; a pride of lions led by a sheep will flee before a hyena! The Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) is the official platform of lawyers in Nigeria. It is probably one of those few professional associations that has survived the bickering and balkanization of ethno-religious campaigns and suspicions. The NBA has always stood as the guardian sentinel of the rule of law, and protection of our liberty. Some tribal irredentists and fanatics have attempted in the past to divide the NBA because of bad politics but failed due to what the association had always stood for. One must therefore, commend the resilience of the association for resisting and rising above the Nigeria’s twin devil of ethnicity and religion.
One cannot find a better way to commence this discourse than to commend and congratulate the first elected female president of the Nigeria Bar Association, Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). She is strikingly urbane, courageous and bold. There are people who may have felt that the election that brought her was not free and fair. It is within their rights to hold such opinion, but Nigerians hardly accept or concede to opponent in contest; bad losers you would say!
Besides the glamour and razzmatazz of the office, she should be prepared for the daunting task of repositioning the NBA through a refining furnace of credibility and integrity. She has got to put her hand to the plough. The Nigeria Bar Association should represent the finest of professional bodies with high moral compass, and be seen to be above all appearances of any impropriety. Today, it has become imperative to interrogate the essence of the NBA beyond being professional association of lawyers. What are the core values and objectives of the NBA, and has it lived up to those values?
Like other professional bodies, it exists basically to cater for the welfare and wellbeing of members. Furthermore, it is to help to deepen the legal practice in support of the judiciary as one of the three arms of government for application of the rule of law in sustenance of our democracy.
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I grew up to know the NBA as one of those vibrant associations with credible leadership driven by some ideological persuasions defending human rights, rule of law and good governance. There was collaboration and synergy with other mass-based organizations like the Nigeria Labour Congress and its affiliates like the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), National Union of Teachers (NUT), the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and even the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) were not left out. The Civil Liberties Organizations (CLO), Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) etc. were all united in fighting against harsh economic policies and return of democracy in Nigeria, not on ethnic or religious basis. This was the era before the commercialization of the human rights and civil society organizations.
The NBA has become merely elitists and detached, alienating itself from the Nigerian masses and even the welfare and wellbeing of members. Indeed, it became fully and scandalously commercialized in the recent years and lost steam, especially during the tenure of the immediate past president of the association, Afam Osigwe (SAN). The NBA used to be part and parcel of the sustained progressive protests for the return to democracy before 1999; supporting the protest against commercialization of education, International Monetary Funds (IMF) loans, removal of petroleum subsidy, amongst others. The NBA was always there to provide legal support with other ideologically driven radical human rights lawyers like late Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, late Bamidele Aturu, Mahmoud Aminu to name but a few. The NBA annual general meeting (AGM) that used to be a market place of ideas and discussion on serious national issues has been turned into a mere entertainment jamboree for beatification and veneration of weird artists without content and content creators.
What would a “Portable” be doing in NBA’s AGM? What is the social or moral content of his message and bearing going to portray to the public, and indeed to community of lawyers? What does this artist represent socio-culturally and what was the message being conveyed by his invitation by a professional body of NBA standing?
We have Nigerian musicians with progressive radical credentials and message for social change. We have urbane Gen-Z-culture musicians also that do not have any negative baggage.
Furthermore, there is a denigration of the bar culture where the NBA President would invite freshly minted and rookie lawyers still in their wet legal diapers to chair and address very senior members of the bar and Body of Benchers on legal issues. What would the social media influencer and activist, Martins Vincent Otse (a.k.a. VDM – VeryDarkMan) be doing at NBA’s AGM, anchoring a session on security? What is his pedigree in scholarship and security matters to be invested and dignified with such task and honour? Of course, he failed every test in the bargain! The NBA was at its nadir, and sank all low during the tenure of Afam Osigwe as President. It became mired in one controversy after another, characterized by profiteering. He became another “Ochanja” market trader in Onitsha; he introduced commercialized continuous compulsory legal training for lawyers at extra-ordinary cost to be part of requirements for lawyers in addition to annual practising fees, outside the statutory requirements. He raked in huge profits with his cartel, until it was successfully challenged and shot down by the court.
There was also the controversial NBA sponsorship money collected from the Rivers State government which became a big issue when the AGM was not hosted by Rivers State government following the emergency rule in the state. The NBA became transactional, mercantile and profiteering; a platform for content creators to advertise pseudo activists that have weaponized social media space for blackmail. Some lawyers have argued that VDM has used his platform to deliver justice and save cost of litigation than the judiciary. These are lawyers who are not able to distinguish between blackmail and justice delivery. This is also a vote of no confidence in the entire judicial system and collapse of the rule of law. These are the poor lawyers that the law faculties are producing every other year!
The time has come to reposition the NBA as a professional body for the benefit of lawyers, the legal profession, the rule of law and the Clapham omnibus. The current leadership should be innovative and think outside the box. Great leadership is not driven by phallocentric machismo, but ideas and vision. The NBA needs a break from transactional, mercantile patronage system which it has become lately. It is now difficult to define what the NBA truly represents. The NBA was noted for radical leadership and progressive activism, shaping the legal practice, protecting its members, promoting democracy and the rule of law. Has the NBA benefited the members and young lawyers to justify check-off and annual dues by members? The “Portables” and “VDMs” have no place for a serious NBA; there are better entertainers! The NBA should project excellence in scholarship and moral reengineering of the society by associating with people that have excelled; men and women with integrity in all fields of human endeavour; not weird musical artists, Nollywood actors and politicians looking for relevance because they have gone to acquire law degrees. The NBA platform should not be deployed or made available for beatification and veneration of mediocre and blackmailers because they occupy media space and weaponized the internet.
•Kebonkwu Esq is an Abuja-based attorney. He writes via mikekebonkwu@yahoo.com
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