NBA Presidents Should Jettison Policies That Do Not Promote Welfare and Economic Empowerment of Lawyers!

By Sylvester Udemezue

1. In return for the various monies the leaderships of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and their affiliates continually collect from Nigerian lawyers, Nigerian lawyers should DEMAND and INSIST on quality, accountable responsible, responsive, transparent and effective governance from the NBA leaderships Instead of waiting for and being content with FREE-NBA-SEALS as a major incentive to continue to pay the Annual Bar Practising Fee (BPF).
2. FREE-NBA-SEAL is not a sign of responsible and effective governance but a sort of perpetuation and promotion of palliative mentality which is a major sign of ineffective governance on the part of the NBA and gullible, docile, beggarly, disoriented and fruitless followership on the part of NBA members.
3. A CORE AIM of the NBA is ”Establishment of schemes for the promotion of the welfare, security, and economic advancement of members of the legal profession”_ (See Section 3(13) of the NBA Constitution, 2015). NBA leaderships should focus on this, instead of promoting the palliative culture that encourages poverty and laziness among lawyers .
4. NBA leaders usually take collection of the Bar Practicing Fee (BPF) and other dues so seriously that they adopt, in each year, all manner of strategies to get lawyers to pay. By going about to appeal to lawyers to pay the BPF and Branch Dues, and by introducing the FREE-NBA-SEALS scheme as an incentive to encourage payment, NBA leaderships are subtly exposing their vested selfish interest in the monies ultimately collected from the BPF. Ordinarily, NBA leaders should have no business and no reasons “appealing” to anyone to pay BPF and dues. Members ought to pay the BPF WILLINGLY and HAPPILY if members are sure that they stand to benefit and especially considering the consequences of failure or neglect to pay.
5. Additionally, (a) section 4 of the NBA Constitution provides that if you don’t pay BPF, you’re disqualified from practicing law in all its facets and from doing anything whatsoever that only a lawyer may do, for the rest of that year, until you pay. The same section says non payment of BPF is a form of unprofessional conduct. Why then does anyone need any FREE-NBA-SEALS as an incentive to pay? See also the Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC), 2023, which makes payment of the BPF a condition precedent to engagement in law practice especially advocacy, in each year.
6. If things were going on well within the NBA, if NBA members were happy with the NBA leaderships, if they were getting VALUE FOR THEIR MONEY by way of good, quality governance, they would happily and promptly pay BPF and any other dues.
7. Unfortunately, there appears to be a situation of TOTAL FAILURE OF CONSIDERATION, as I have come to realize, meaning that Nigerian lawyers hardly get value for the monies they pay to the NBA. Thus about 90 percent of lawyers who pay BPF do so only because they want to be able to collect Stamp and Seal in that year which itself is required to be affixed to any document prepared by a lawyer for the purpose of authentication. In other words, most NBA members pay the BPF because NBA practically, indirectly COMPELS them to pay. Else, they might not and NBA leaderships know this, because there’s hardly anything lawyers get in return, BY WAY OF VALUE, GOOD GOVERNANCE
8. I repeat that payment of the BPF should be done by lawyers freely and without any inducement such as the palliative FREE-NBA-SEALS that only gives unsuspecting lawyers a false impression that NBA is doing something (giving FREE-NBA-SEAL) when the FREE-NBA-SEALS scheme in itself is neither a sign of progress for the NBA nor evidence of good governance on the part of NBA leaderships.
9. The best sign of progress is when every lawyer in Nigeria is able on his own, to apply and pay for the number of NBA seals he needs in each year; such is a sign of economic improvement as well as an improvement in the professional lives of NBA members.
10. Four major factors should constitute the major reason why Nigerian lawyers should feel obliged to pay the Annual Bar Practising Fee: (1) The payment is statutory and mandatory; (2) Default has serious consequences, as already pointed out above. (3). The payment is the annual law practising licence renewal fee for lawyers and (4).That Nigerian lawyers are getting value for the monies collected from them by the NBA. Unfortunately, number (4) above, as I have explained, is almost absent leading to widespread indifference by lawyers towards prompt payment of the BPF.
11. However, as a way out and instead of delivering good, effective governance (which should be the major motivation and the real incentive for payment of the BPF), some NBA leaderships recently devised the strategy of promising lawyers who pay their BPF before 31 March in each year, a card or two of NBA seals. The scheme was begun under the Akpata leadership (2020-2022), but it appears the current NBA leadership is not interested in continuing it, in response to which there are pockets of protests by lawyers who argue that the FREE-NBA-SEALS bonus serves as “a major incentive” for payment of the BPF. Unfortunate!
12. Some others have suggested that the FREE-NBA-SEALS bonus, which was started by the Olumide Akpata leadership, was later stopped under the Yakubu Maikyau leadership, while some others say it was continued by the Maikyau leadership. Anyway, when the strategy started or stopped and whether it has stopped or has not stopped are not the focus of this commentary. The main focus of this commentary is that the FREE-NBA-SEALS in return for payment of the BPF is an ugly strategy that illustrates dilapidation, deterioration and retrogression.
13. Such a palliative mentality strategy/policy ought to be discontinued forthwith while NBA leaderships should focus their attention on upholding the core essentials of good governance as identified by UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific): (1) Participation; (2)
    Strict adherence to the Rule of law, enthronement of fair legal frameworks that are enforced impartially, and full protection of human rights, particularly those of minorities; (3). Transparency and adherence to due process ; (4). Timely and responsible responsiveness to the challenges of the NBA and its members, so as to engender trust and Consensus oriented: Mature, reasonable, fair balancing and reconciling of the many conflicting interests and needs within the NBA; (6). Equity and inclusiveness to ensure a sense of belonging to the various interests within the the NBA; (7) Effectiveness and efficiency, ensuring a result-oriented leadership where the results are such that meet reasonable expectation.
14. Efficiency involves sustainable use of available resources while effectiveness entails producing results that meet the needs of members and stakeholders in the NBA; (8). Accountability: NBA leaderships must be accountable to NBA members and to all stakeholders. Observance of the requirements of transparency and rule of law ensures accountability, equity, and inclusiveness.
15. Delivery of good governance to NBA members (which is the fundamental reason the NBA leadership is installed) should be the best and the most credible motivation, incentive for NBA members’ commitment to prompt and regular payment of the BPF.
    Respectfully,
    Sylvester Udemezue (Udems), Proctor of The Reality Ministry of Truth, Law and Justice (TRM)
    08109024556.
    TheRealityMinister@Gmail.Com.
    (31 January 2025)

By Tonye Clinton Jaja

In the past few weeks, the Nigerian public and others have received a lot of confessions from both current and former public officials.

Although not originally planned as public confessions, the public statements of these former and current public officials, UNWITTINGLY provided deep insights into the “inner workings”, the modus operandi and the priorities of the top public officials of Nigeria.

It started with the confessions of the current Governor of Bayelsa State, who admitted that he spent a whopping $15,000 as transportation fare for marabout (spiritual adviser) who had been imported from Senegal to “secure” his successful emergence as Governor of Bayelsa State!!!

Then the next person to take the microphone, was Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, National Assembly. In his own written testimony, he provided details of how Nyesom Ezenwo Wike (NEW) expended over ₦1bn of Rivers State government funds to finance the election of Governor Bala Mohammed in the year 2018/2019.

Then last week, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi (RCA) took the microphone and announced that PBAT and all other Nigerian politicians will NEVER RELINQUISH VOLUNTARILY. That they are prepared to kill, maim and steal (and amend the necessary laws to elong the IGP’S tenure) to retain their hold on political power!!!

And most recently, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, the Police Public Relations Officer-PRO has joined the list of confessors.

So that I would not be accused of misquoting him out of context, I will reproduce verbatim what he said as follows:

“Muyiwa Adejobi, the public relations officer of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), says it is ridiculous for Nigerians to believe that officers can not afford expensive phones.

Adejobi, while responding to a query on his X handle, on Saturday, said netizens need to be “straight and be objective” when questioning police officers’ source of income.

HOW IT STARTED

On Friday, Adejobi posted a picture of one David Victoria, a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) and secretary to the inspector general of Police (IGP), who appears to be holding a Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 and a diamond-branded watch around her wrist.

“We have beautiful and intelligent ones in the force. This is DSP David Victoria, secretary to the IGP. Happy weekend. Ire o,” Adejobi wrote.

Netizens, who reacted to the post, asked for a disclosure of the officer’s salary that could afford a cellphone worth ₦1 million.

An X user also requested that Victoria’s account statement be printed out to track her cash inflow claiming her salary cannot afford such an expensive gadget.”

When a public servant, owns any property that is beyond their current salary, there can be only two LEGITIMATE sources and explanations as follows:

1. A legitimate gift or legacy bequeathed by a very wealthy spouse or relative or friend. Or earned from bonds or shares; and
2. Income earned from agricultural activity which is the only approved extra-secular activity that Nigerian public servants are permitted to engage in.

Therefore, the Nigerian Police PRO owes us as the general public an objective explanation as to the other sources of income that accrue to public servants, in this instance police officers (other than their salaries and income from agricultural activity).

Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi’s proposed explanation can be a source of renewed interest and recruitment into the Nigerian Police by majority of unemployed Nigerian youths who would no realise that apart from the regular salary there are other sources of income for Police officers (which was previously unknown to majority of Nigerians)!!!

Unwittingly, Mr. Adejobi’s response has inadvertently provided additional explanation to the reason why the IGP lobbied for and was granted an extension of tenure.

Considering that an ordinary Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and Secretary to the IGP is using a wristwatch and phone that costs over ₦1m, what would the IGP himself be using?

And unless, the IGP has an undisclosed mental health challenge, or is not a “typical” Nigerian public official, which “Nigerian” public official in his “right senses” would not seek to elongate his tenure when such an office gives him access to such humongous public funds!!!

Dr. Tonye Clinton Jaja,
Executive Director,
Nigerian Law Society (NLS).

Each time we hear or read outsiders say they are fighting for Yoruba Muslims, some of us (Yoruba Muslims) laugh. Who told them that we cannot fight our war ourselves – if there is a war? A statement signed by an Imam Haroun Muhammad Eze on behalf of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) led by the Sultan of Sokoto alleged last week that Yoruba Muslims were suffering marginalization in Yorubaland. The statement headlined ‘Live and Let Live’ complained about what it called “calculated attempts to prevent Muslims in the (South-West) region from practising their faith.” I read it and asked myself if that truly was the case. I asked some of my Muslim friends also. We compared notes and laughed.

The statement from the NSCIA wanted Sharia law in Yoruba states. Eighteen years ago, Kano-based Islamic scholar, Sheikh Adam Koki, was quoted as telling the New York Times that “politicians (have) started seeing Sharia as a gateway to political power.” They saw right and used it very well in pocketing Kano and its two million votes. They still annex and harness that gateway to arrive at power and wealth. With the piety of Sharia, a partnership in governance has evolved with northern Nigeria’s highbinders. And, because some persons pestled a tiger to death yesterday, some club-wielding people without muscles are on the prowl in 2025 Yoruba forest, hunting tigers and leopards. They do not know that it is not every leopard that is fated to fall to clubs.

The present cries are very unnecessary. Sharia never left Yorubaland. Our fathers called it seria. It has evolved adopting adept procedures in deft accommodation of its environmental and social realities. Yoruba Muslim families, who desire it, still conduct their private affairs in accordance with Sharia without disturbing their neighbours.

A quiet Sharia panel has been sitting for decades at Oja’ba, Ibadan. There is another one in Osogbo. I suspect that other major Yoruba towns have them. They adjudicate on marriage and marital issues; they arbitrate on disputes among Muslims. They do their thing without noise and drama and excesses. Every willing Muslim who goes there loves what the panels do and how they do it. The respective state governments are aware of their existence but they do not disturb them. At the compound and family levels, check out what we do with Muslim weddings, burials, administration of estates and inheritance matters etc. Those who want more than this should be bold to say what exactly they want.

They want hisbah, moral police on the streets of Ibadan, Abeokuta and Akure? They want a Yoruba Bello Buba Jangebe who would be amputated for stealing a goat while big men who steal roads and bridges hold court? Anyone who wants the Kano, Zamfara kind of Sharia in 2025 Western Nigeria needs counseling. They can have that only in an Islamic Republic of Yorubaland. And, to have that, they will need more than mere words and farty threats. The Nigerian state is a multi-religious reality; it exists to enforce its laws – your creed and my credo notwithstanding.

The case for officially sanctioned Sharia in Yorubaland will be easy to argue and win if its solicitors can show how its introduction in the North has helped the North. They should just exhibit how 22 years of ‘Sharia’ has turned Kano to Dubai or Riyadh or Doha; how more religious, more pious, more equitable, more peaceful and more prosperous the Muslim North has become since ‘Sharia’ became their guiding moral and political philosophy. That is all they need to prove to the Yoruba that Western Nigeria is missing something cool and good for their physical and spiritual growth.

The claim that Yoruba Muslims suffer persecution at the hands of Yoruba leaders and principalities is absurd. The most powerful human being in Nigeria today is the president; he is a Yoruba Muslim. He possibly read that NSCIA’s press statement and laughed as I did. Am I, a Yoruba Muslim, marginalised in Yorubaland? Who is marginalising whom and who is complaining or should complain?

I come from a state (Osun State) that has had six elected governors since it was created in 1991. Five of those six governors are/were Muslims. And, I will identify them: Alhaji Isiaka Adeleke was the first elected governor of the state. He was in power from 1992 to November 1993 when General Abacha sacked everyone everywhere. With democracy in 1999 came Chief Abdulkarim Adebisi Akande, a Muslim. After Akande came Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, a Christian. Then came Alhaji Rauf Aregbesola, a Muslim who spent eight years in power and was succeeded by a Muslim, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola. Alhaji Oyetola’s successor, Senator Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke, flaunts his Muslim heritage and pedigree for all to see. No one has ever complained about the religious identity of these leaders – and no one will. Indeed, there is a governorship election next year; virtually all contenders that have shown their faces so far in the two principal parties are Muslims.

No one’s religion has ever truly been an issue in Osun State. On May 29, 2003, a Muslim Chief Judge swore in a Christian governor (Oyinlola) and a Christian deputy governor (Erelu Olusola Obada). The Christian-Christian ticket of Oyinlola/Obada was elected by an electorate from three senatorial districts, two of which are predominantly Muslim. There was not a single word of complaint from anywhere. The Muslim incumbent who lost that election did not bother to contest his loss in court.

I work in a state (Oyo State) that has produced five governors from 1999 to date. Three of the five are/were Muslims. Again, I will identify them: Alhaji Lam Adesina (Muslim) was the first to take the baton in 1999. He was succeeded by Senator Rashidi Ladoja, a Muslim. Otunba Adebayo Alao Akala, a Christian, succeeded Ladoja. Alao-Akala spent a term and handed over to Alhaji Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi, a Muslim, who spent two terms. The incumbent is Mr Seyi Makinde, a Christian. He will be succeeded by a Muslim or a Christian in two years’ time – no one cares.

If Sharia as it exists in the North is truly a priority of the Yoruba, would those Muslim governors have ignored doing it? Or are those gentlemen not Muslim enough? Indeed, as recently as 2011 to 2015, the governors of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, and Osun States were all Muslim. We are talking of four out of six states being ruled by Muslim governors at the same time. I am referring to the years when Raji Fashola (Lagos); Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun); Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo) and Rauf Aregbesola (Osun) were governors. The four states operated under Muslims – leaving Ekiti and Ondo states for Christians. And there was peace. There will always be peace because what throws in governors and what kicks them out in Western Nigeria is the sobriety that comes with good behavior and good governance –not praise and worship.

Where I come from, we were taught to learn how to state our case before learning how to fight. The statement from the NSCIA said sharia was a constitutional issue. If it was, shouldn’t it be properly handled in a constitutional way? If we, Yoruba Muslims, truly want codified Sharia law and Sharia Courts, there are Muslim legislators in virtually all the state Houses of Assembly. Sharia proponents should ask these Muslim legislators to sponsor bills on the matter and lobby their colleagues to pass them into law. Or, if they think it is already in the constitution, and it is their right, let them go to court for enforcement of that right. If I were they and I could not do this, I would keep quiet forever. Extra-legal, unilateral, self-help declarations cannot help them in a democracy.

I once wrote against some Yoruba Pentecostal Christians who said (and still say) my sallah meat is sin. We look at such here and say they’ve packed unwellness with their faith. Yoruba Muslims who jog to the North in search of pity and support are exactly like those ones. They are as misguided as the misguided Pentecostal Christians. They are both working hard to rip open the belly of amity in Yoruba land with their fundamentalism. And they cannot succeed.

Now, what do I think of Imam Eze signing a Live-and-Let-Live statement on Sharia in Yorubaland? An Eze, I assume and presume, is from the South-East. If that signatory is from the South-East, then it was a ghastly error on the part of those who procured him to sign that statement. It was also an insult to the Yoruba, a people with a robust history of engagement with Islam dating back to more than seven hundred years. Procuring outsiders to speak for the Yoruba Muslim is a misnomer. They have leaders; their leaders are the Imams; they listen to the Imams, the Imams listen to them. Channeling the Yoruba spring to flow desert-wards for rejuvenation is an effort that hurts.

The Imam Eze statement will make me draw an analogy: We all know that Ilorin has no physical and spiritual space for Sango, the Yoruba god of thunder. Now, imagine an Ilorin man donning the costume of the Mogba, priest of Sango, and marketing the god of thunder to Oyo Alaafin, Sango’s hometown. Or who does not know that Mùsùlùmí Ìgbò gégé bi OníSàngó Ilorin ni? I will neither interpret nor translate that question. The Eze man should have first launched Sharia for his own home region before looking the Yoruba way. My people say if you think velvet is good and you would clothe me with it, I must first see on you velvet or something superior to velvet. How can the unclad clothe the clothed?

A group of eminent Yoruba Muslim scholars, seven years ago, published a book entitled: ‘Islam in Yorubaland: History, Education and Culture’. The editors were kind enough to give me a copy. Those who are seeking to fetishize Sharia today will learn from those scholars that what they seek to import has actually been part of their heritage before the white man created Nigeria with all its contradictions. Persons who are begging for external help on Sharia should read what the scholars say in that book. They will read the story of a Timi of Ede, Oba Abibu Lagunju (1817-1900), his court and the existence of Ilé Bàbá Kóòtù (compound of baba who holds court) in Ede. They will read also of Oluwo of Iwo, Momodu Lamuye, who became Oluwo of Iwo in 1858 and died in 1906. They will read of why a compound is named Ile Alikali (Alkali’s compound) in Iwo. They will read more of Islam, Sharia and the Yoruba society before colonialism.

Provocation excites and tickles us in this country. In 2016, a bill for a Christian court was sponsored by Hon. Gyang Dung (PDP) from Plateau State and eight other members of the House of Representatives. It scaled the second reading and that was the last we heard of it. The bill was an act of provocation and it was so treated and trashed. The statement from Imam Eze and its associated noise fall in the same category.

The difference between the past and the present is change. We live in a world that shifts with time. The World Bank in 2020 ranked Saudi Arabia as the fastest-reforming country in the world. That country has gone far doing that, redefining the concepts of right and wrong and striking a balance between Islamic law on the one hand; local politics and global economic realities on the other. Today, even rude Donald Trump lowers his voice when the subject is Saudi. Those who have knowledge tell us that the reforms that burnish and refurbish Saudi Arabia do not make that country less Muslim.

It should be the same here. Reform and innovation are at the core of Yoruba’s cultural resilience. That is possibly what the Muslim North has not sat down to study and understand about Western Nigeria.

Let me say finally that making Sharia a hot-button topic in 2025 Nigeria is suspect and very unnecessary. Elections are coming, especially presidential and governorship elections. Flightless birds need the winds of religion to fly their political planes. They will use all magic and talismans to conjure those winds. The sudden interest in Sharia is one talisman that worked wonders in other climes at other desperate times of polls. It cannot work in today’s and tomorrow’s Yorubaland. So, I appeal to the Sultan and other well-meaning Muslim leaders to back off on agitations that seek to use their respected and respectable anvil to forge this idle tool. Adding their weight to weightless claims does no one any good.

In the ongoing controversy surrounding Mr. Egbetokun’s tenure extension, the key issues are not merely legal compliance but the legitimacy of both the legislative process that amended the Police Act and the extension itself.

While the Attorney General’s perspective suggests that Egbetokun may legally remain in office despite surpassing the 60-year age limit, the broader implications of legitimacy are significant. The public outcry concerning the process and the extension should be a primary concern for Egbetokun, especially given the discontent within the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). Many senior officers feel that their career trajectories have been compromised by this extension.

The amendment bill that facilitated this tenure extension originated from President Tinubu, for whom Egbetokun served as chief security officer during his time as governor of Lagos State. Egbetokun’s public expressions of loyalty to Tinubu raise questions about the neutrality of the amendment process, especially when the Nigerian Senate, led by Godswill Akpabio, exhibited a willingness to swiftly carry out the President’s directives. The unprecedented speed at which the bill passed through all legislative readings—complete with no public hearing—further erodes its legitimacy. How can such a critical amendment to the Police Act be enacted without public consultation?

The outcry regarding the amendment process and Egbetokun’s tenure extension is a vital concern for both him and the government, especially if they profess to value due process, transparency, and public trust. Even if the amendment withstands legal scrutiny, questions about its retroactive application remain. Should Egbetokun benefit from an amendment made while he was already in office? This challenges the principle of non-retroactivity in law and raises further legal and ethical considerations.

In conclusion, while legalities may outline the framework of governance, it is the legitimacy of actions taken that will ultimately determine public faith in institutions like the Nigeria Police Force. Egbetokun’s focus should shift from merely defending his legal standing to addressing the very real concerns surrounding the legitimacy of his position and the processes that brought him here.

Okechukwu Nwanguma  

February 1, 2025