Nigerian leaders across the tiers of government, especially at the federal level, have reduced fiscal governance to a crude and barbaric joke. A joke carried out at the expense of the people and which produces direct results in poverty, suffering, disease and death for a good part of the population. There are unequivocal provisions in laws, regulations and policies directing on how public resources should be managed, spent and accounted for. But that is the law in the books which our leaders hold in great disdain and contempt.

The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended provides in Section162 as follows: ”The Federation shall maintain a special account to be called the ‘Federation Account’ into which shall be paid all revenues collected by the Government of the Federation, except the proceeds of the personal income tax of the personnel of the armed forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force, the ministry or department of government charged with responsibility for Foreign Affairs and the residents of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja”. From the President, members of the federal and state legislatures, governors, revenue generating agencies, etc., everyone is aware and knows about this provision. Again, the Constitution in Section 80 makes it clear that no money should be spent out of the consolidated revenue fund of the federation or any other public fund except upon the authorisation of the National Assembly.

However, some agencies operate above the law on a yearly basis and get away with fiscal murder. The office of the Auditor General of the Federation, an office established by the same constitution states in the 2014-2017 federal audit reports that three agencies- the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Department of Petroleum Resources and the Federal Inland Revenue Services withheld a total sum of N5.785trillion. The NNPC is holding on to N4.501tn, DPR N334bn while the FIRS held on to N951bn. They have since failed, refused and neglected to make these humungous sums available to the three tiers of government.

The three deviant agencies ignored sections 80 and 162 of the constitution and took extra-legal steps to violate the law. This raises the poser, why are these sections often obeyed in the breach? Why is no one being brought to account for flagrant disregard of constitutional provisions? Spending without appropriation and in clear disregard of the duty to remit to the distributable pool account is an original sin against the constitution for which the culprits do not deserve an extra day on their seat after the crime has been established. For the President of the Federation, spending without appropriation is an impeachable offence for it is an attempt to combine executive and legislative powers and such a combination is the hallmark of dictatorship.

This is a fact in the public domain at a time the federal government is virtually bankrupt and borrows to pay salaries as well borrows to pay back the due portions of previous loans – debt service and not even the repayment of the capital. If this money is recovered, it would offset the 2020 federal deficit. The N5.785tn is just a part of the unremitted funds reported in the audit reports and if all the due unremitted sums for the four years are put together, it could be as much as the 2020 federal budget.

In a normal situation, the Accountant General of the Federation and the Minister of Finance should follow up these monies, recover and put them back into the Federation Account. But this is a not a normal but an absurd abnormal situation. Therefore, beyond the Accountant-General and Minister of Finance, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), by virtue of his broad powers under S.5 of the 1999 Constitution, should give clear orders that all due sums should be paid into the Federation Account. This recommendation is also based on the fact that the key agency responsible for the bulk of the deductions — the NNPC– is directly under his supervision as the Minister of Petroleum. Furthermore, the unauthorised deductions make a strong case for the expeditious enactment of the governance and administrative reforms proposed in the Petroleum Industry Bill to enable the NNPC or its equivalent to operate like a commercial firm. The PIB has been delayed for over 20 years without any reasonable explanation and the last time a governance bill was passed, the President refused assent based on specious reasons.

The case of the NNPC is even most absurd. In the last couple of years, the backlog of joint venture cash calls and new ones are being paid for through the deployment of excess crude oil which the major international oil companies are allowed to take to offset due debts. So, what exactly informs the NNPC’s refusal to pay due sums into the Federation Account? A nation that keeps borrowing to meet basic mandates cannot be bleeding with unremitted sums and no one is being held accountable. No one is in jail for these scams, no one is apologising to Nigerians and indeed, unremitted sums have not been returned. Alternatively, are the NNPC, DPR and FIRS stating that the Auditor-General reported without any empirical evidence or went outside his mandate? No, we cannot continue this charade.

It is surprising that the states who are shortchanged by these unauthorised deductions have kept quiet and have not mounted any vigorous challenge to these infractions. It is the expectation that states should challenge this “customary practice” at the Supreme Court. Apparently, because the Auditor-General of the Federation takes on the cabals and grand fathers of corruption, the bill to strengthen his office, provide more resources and logistics for the office to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the performance of duties has also been in the works for over 15 years, Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Buhari refused assent to the Federal Audit Service Commission Bill and none of them gave any reason for declining assent.

The ball falls back on Nigerians as the ultimate sovereigns to put the required pressure for the enthronement of transparency and accountability in federal fiscal governance. We cannot continue to borrow when the leadership of key revenue generating agencies are sitting on sums which government should have used to fulfil public mandates.END

The renewed interest in the crisis that continues to rock Southern Kaduna would be helpful if it produces a genuine effort at resolving the problem and ensuring lasting peace in that part of the country that remains troubled, divided and to all intents and purposes, a killing field. It was reported that between July 21 and July 24, about 43 persons were killed across communities in Southern Kaduna, and over a period of seven months, about 178 persons lost their lives. What makes the situation tragic is that the killers often served notice of the impending attacks and carried out their threats, for hours on end in many cases, unhindered, unchecked, unrestrained.  Even when the state government imposed a 24-hour curfew, the killings still continued. Homes were often burnt down. Women were raped. Innocent children were caught in the cross-fire. Farmlands were razed to the ground resulting in economic hardship. The Southern Kaduna question is an open-ended story of a people’s unending search for peace. The area known as Southern Kaduna is both a geographical and political category, but the context of the perpetual crisis is rooted in history.  It is the story of a people, living together for more than a century and yet unable to find accommodation as a result of historical rivalries, politics of ownership, identity, ethnicity, economy and religion. What we are dealing with basically is autochthony: politics of origin, identity and space, linked with a crisis of belonging that serves as a catalyst for conflict and violence. Conflicts are not an African creation; they are a global phenomenon. But what matters is how each country addresses its ontological uncertainties through the application of peace-building, conflict-resolution, as well as vertical and horizontal, inter-communal, integration mechanisms.

During the colonial era, the area known as Southern Kaduna was part of the Zaria Province. It was not just home to over 30 ethnic nationalities, the people were predominantly non-Muslims, but with the seat of power in Zazzau (as Zaria was formerly known), it meant that the various ethnic nationalities: Atyap, Adara, Agbiri, Kagoma etc. found themselves under the control of the Hausa-Fulani, the majority group in the Northern part of the province. Over the years, the Hausa-Fulani hegemony established an emirate system to which the indigenous people of Southern Kaduna paid taxes, and to whose rules and directives they were subjected. Non-Muslims were marginalized, forced into hard labour and expected to convert to Islam. Their lands also provided good grazing fields for Hausa-Fulani herders. The British authorities conveniently took advantage of this situation, but the marginalized people of the South, who now had the Hausa-Fulani living among them and occupying a higher rung of the social ladder, and gradually taking control of space, began to resent the new reality. When missionaries began to arrive in the area in larger numbers, the indigenous people embraced Christianity with great fervor, a kind of revolt against the Emirate system which they had come to view suspiciously as a symbol of oppression.

In May 1946, the Atyap of Zangon-Kataf rebelled when the Emir increased taxes. They also began to agitate for control over their own affairs. In 1967, they got their own District Head. Like the Atyaps, the other indigenous ethnic nationalities also resisted the dominance of the Hausa-Fulani. A major source of conflict has been ownership of farmlands and the right of access to land. The Hausa-Fulani in Southern Kaduna, over the years also enjoyed better patronage from the colonial and post-colonial authorities at regional and federal levels. With regard to land, the indigenous people never accepted the argument by the Muslim Hausa-Fulani that “Everything belongs to Allah. Every piece of land belongs to Allah and not you, it is not for you infidels but for Allah” that is “Komai na Allah ne. Ko wane fili na Allah ne ba naku ba, ba na kafirai ba, na Allah ne.” This definition of real property by Muslim members of the community did not appeal to the Christians. Africans generally have a fanatical attachment to land, the reason the possession of it or the outright ownership of it is a potent source of conflict across the continent. In Kasuwan-Magani (1980) and Gure-Kahugu (1984), conflict arose over land.

There is an existing rich literature on the various causes of conflict in Southern Kaduna, but central to it all is the politics of division, them vs. us, your own vs my own, that has kept the people divided. Oftentimes, the main cause of the conflict is an attempt by one group to dominate the other or resist the other. In 1987, the Kafanchan riots began in a College of Education and the main problem was religion. The riot in the Zangon Kataf area in 1992 was all about disagreements over the location of a market. In May 2000, the riots spread from Southern Kaduna to other parts of Kaduna State. In virtually every incident, religion is always a major issue as seen in 2011, 2015, 2016, 2019, and now in 2020, and as further evidenced by the number of churches that are burnt and Christian leaders that are killed. It has been argued that the Hausa-Fulani seem to have an upper hand in the various conflicts because  they receive the support of herdsmen from across the Sahel, Niger, Mali, Chad and other places, who at certain seasons migrate to Nigeria to graze cattle. It is more of the truth however that the Southern Kaduna narrative is complex. Like the British colonialists, modern-day politicians – first the military and later civilians have exploited the situation for their own narrow gains. Intellectual hegemons on both sides of the divide have authorized sectional and jaundiced narratives to protect their people’s interests. Muslims insist for example that they have also been victims in the hands of non-Muslims, and that no one should complain about revenge killings. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), and the Pentecostal Bishops Forum of Northern Nigeria insist that the attack on Christians in Southern Kaduna amounts to a violation of the right of Christians to enjoy the freedoms of belief and association, and that the Nigerian state is complicit in this regard. Ethnic nationalists protest about what they classify as genocide or ethnic cleansing in Southern Kaduna. In the wake of the last round of killings in the area, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria declared a period of mourning and prayers from August 22 – September 30, 2020.   Christian stakeholders have petitioned the United Nations Human Rights Council, the UK Parliament and the US Congress.

What seems certain perhaps is the fact that there are no saints in the killing fields of Southern Kaduna. It will be recalled that the 1987 Kafanchan riots began when a Christian group decided to put up a provocative banner: “Welcome to Jesus Campus” at the Kafanchan College of Education! The Southern Kaduna question is, as I see it, a reflection of the national question as much as it is a dimension of the dilemma of “religion, politics and power in Northern Nigeria”. It further speaks to the crisis of state failure and capture. Successive administrations have set up panels of inquiry on killings in Southern Kaduna. White Papers have been issued and despite the fact that the trend remains the same, the various recommendations are never implemented. Political leaders take sides in the conflict, thus failing to show leadership. They make inflammatory statements which embolden the criminals they claim are behind the killings. When the night raids occur, the security agencies usually fail to show up, and when they do, great havoc would have been committed, with tragic consequences. Those who lost their loved ones and property in fact allege that security agents openly encourage and assist the bandits. The effect is that many communities in Southern Kaduna are now contemplating taking up arms to defend themselves.

The reign of impunity and the failure of the state to act, when replaced by a resort to self-help, is a prescription for anomie.  The people of Southern Kaduna, particularly the Christian communities are losing interest in the Nigerian state. They see their present travails as a re-enactment of the oppression, marginalization and abuse that they suffered under the old Emirate system. The international community has expressed concern about the human rights implications of the insecurity in various parts of the country.  Many families have been displaced across the North. The Internally Displaced Persons camps are over-stretched. The Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU), the umbrella body of the people of Southern Kaduna, has received great support and solidarity from other ethnic groups in the country including the Pan-Niger Delta Forum, the Southern and Middle Belt Forum, Ohanaeze, and the Afenifere, with each group stressing the national implications of the reign of violence in different parts of the country.

The incumbent Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai has been blamed by some critics for mismanaging the crisis in the Southern part of the state he governs. As we have seen, he has a lot more to do. He is dealing with a century-old problem, fed by memory, mutual unwillingness to embrace peace, ego, class, religion, and ethnicity.  Following the latest round of conflicts, Governor Nasir el-Rufai summoned a State Security Council meeting and has also met with a delegation of the Christian Association of Nigeria. He has expressed his government’s willingness to work together with the security agencies to ensure peace in Southern Kaduna. Other Governors before him made similar promises.  He has also asked the leaders and the people of the area to make up their minds to live together in peace, and seek to resolve their differences through lawful means. As Governor, he must take the lead in that regard. In 2016, he offered compensation to members of the Hausa-Fulani community who lost property in a similar incident. He must take steps to also assist non-Muslims. How many churches, or markets is the Governor willing to help rebuild? How much compensation would the state offer those who lost their farmlands and other properties?  The people do not trust the state government. Concrete steps should be taken to gain their trust.

As if in response to the Governor’s call for unity, however, a Peace Summit was held the other day by Atyap, and Hausa-Fulani communities in Zangon-Kataf Local Government where the community leaders agreed to end hostilities. They agreed to set up a Standing Peace Committee. They also signed a 14-point resolution. It is not often that Muslims and Christians in Southern Kaduna sit together at a round-table for peace talks, so that is a welcome development. A similar meeting should be held in every local government in the region. The ordinary people: the farmers, the herdsmen and others should be part of that conversation. The major problem we often have in our communities is the lack of vertical integration. The elites are so high up, so class conscious. Even when they claim to be representing the people’s interests, the people believe that they are just representing themselves or the class that they belong to. Most of our so-called Nigerian big men are so alienated from the people, they have no idea what the people want. To build peace, there must be trust. To build trust, there must be a meeting of minds. The people who are targeted for attacks are not necessarily the men in high places who collect sitting allowances even when they attend Peace Summits, they are the farmers on whose farmland a herdsman grazes his cattle and destroys the crops, they are the market women who are raped, the young men and women who are abused. They must have a voice in this conversation.

One other latest development in this connection is the statement made about the Southern Kaduna situation by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo at the 60^th Annual General Conference of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA). It was good to hear from the Vice President. The Presidency has so far been too bureaucratic and academic about the security situation in the country. But Professor Osinbajo spoke from the heart. He apologized to the people of Southern Kaduna and empathized with them. He pointed out that as far back as 2001, he had been involved in the peace-building process in Kaduna State through the Macedonia Initiative, a Non-Governmental Organization. He disclosed that the Federal Government is setting up a military base in Southern Kaduna. A combined team from the Army and the Navy has also been deployed to check the reign of impunity in the affected areas. “We won’t sweep underlying issues under the carpet”, he promised.

It is good to hear someone so high up refer to the underlying issues at the centre of the Southern Kaduna crisis. Those underlying issues are hydra-headed as the drift of this commentary, should by now indicate, but one major issue is the deployment of security personnel. Many of these security agents have become part of the problem because they identify with camps in the conflict. No bandit has ever been prosecuted for causing mayhem in Southern Kaduna because the security agent who has been deployed to apprehend, or stop him, identifies with him and his ideology. What is the point in sending a Hausa-Fulani Muslim soldier or policeman to arrest a Hausa-Fulani bandit? That is one underlying issue that needs to be addressed. The Nigerian State, by its own omissions, promotes impunity. The Southern Kaduna is not a peculiar problem that is beyond human solution. Nigerian leaders should focus on the structural basis of ethnic conflicts and the stress factors associated with internal colonialism under a democratic dispensation. Why should anyone ever feel like the other, the outsider, the marginalized in their own space under a democratic dispensation? Lessons can be learnt from disputes in other parts of Nigeria: Ijaw-Itsekiri in Delta State, Nupe-Yoruba in Kwara, Ife-Modakeke in Osun, Jukun-Tiv conflicts in Benue/Taraba States and the many recommendations of various panels of inquiry on Southern Kaduna which no one has ever bothered to implement.

By Chika Otuchikere

There is palpable tension in the church in Nigeria over the Companies and Allied Matters Act called CAMA 2020 accented into law by President Muhammadu Buhari on August 7,2020. Church leaders in the country who sensed more than conspiracy in the law because it deems to introduce government’s interference nd perhaps, control into the administration of the church, have vowed that they will never allow the government to have any say in how the church in Nigeria is run.

The CAMA law provides that government, through the Registrar General of the Corporate Affairs Commission CAC, is empowered to dissolve a church’s board of Trustees and appoint a new board. The CAC boss also has the power to look into the financial activities of the church and make decisions on the church. The leaders of the church who, hitherto, have become used to running their ministries without any interference from the government are finding these provisions as government’s meddlesomeness in a realm they ought not to, given that they are neither trained nor called into such spiritual leadership.

Nigeria’s constitution provides that the country is a secular state and so, has no affiliation or adherence to any religious belief. However, what Nigerians have seen in real life is that the religious institutions wield nearly overbearing influence in the country’s governance system. Elections into political offices are determined, to a large extent, by the religious leaning of the candidates jostling for offices. This was more pronounced in the last two elections that produced the incumbent president and vice president.

It was reported that Mr. Muhammadu Buhari, the choice of the ruling, All Progressives Congress, APC, for the 2015 presidential election was to have Sen. Ahmed Asiwaju Tinubu as running mate. This was rejected by the party’s leadership because it would throw up a Muslim-Muslim ticket, which many party stalwarts felt would jeopardize the party’s chances of winning that election. According to them, the Christians believed to form nearly 50 percent of the voting population, would not endorse such a combination. In a deft political move, the party settled for Prof Yemi Osinbajo, a church leader of one of the most populous Christian ministries in the country. The party eventually won that election due to many permutations, including that many, if not all members of Osinbajo’s church members voted for his party.

After President Buhari was sworn-in in 2015, another religious controversy that reared its ugly head was the perceived skewed appointment of his cabinet and other appointees to favour persons of his religion. A typical case study was the lamentation that Buhari appointed most of the country’s security chiefs from his part of the country and religion. The call for him to overhaul his appointments to reflect a religious and ethnicity balance fell on deaf ears till date.

It would be recalled that the CAMA controversy is not the first time this government appears to poke fingers into the nostrils of the church. In 2016, about one year into the Buhari administration, the government shocked the nation in general and the church in particularly, when it announced a law requiring church leaders or founders to resign the headship of their various gospel ministries at the attainment of 70 years of age. The law required the church leaders to handover the church headship to a non-family member after 70 years of age or 20 years of being in charge of the ministry. The law which was also designed to guarantee financial accountability became law on October 16, 2016.

As controversial as the law was, gospel ministers who had attained 70 years or 20years on the pulpit were poised to comply. Leading the pack of those who complied was Pastor Enoch Adeboye, General overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of Church which also has Osinbajo as one of its leaders. Adeboye announced his resignation. Barely four years after that obnoxious law was shot down, the government has smuggled similar seemingly ‘draconian’ law into the CAMA Act. Again, the government wants to control the leadership and accounts of the church.

The church is more a spiritual entity than a secular one. No government has power or business prying into the affairs of the church. This is because the Bible says Jesus Christ is the Head of the church and Christ is above every government. Any attempt by anybody or government to meddle into the affairs of the church, the Bible says, is like a man hitting his foot against a rock.

An African adage says, rightly, that it is the man that brings ant infested firewood into his house that should be ready to entertain lizards as guests. It is instructive to assert here that if government has begun to make attempts to interfere in the affairs of the church, it is the fault of the church leaders. Many church leaders behave like their god is the material things of this world. The Bible tells us that the world and everything in it shall perish and vanish. The church leaders jettison the teachings of Jesus Christ in their attempts to please the world and acquire the material things of this world. It is only when they are accumulating the material things of the world that they affirm that “the Lord is good”. They surreptitiously denounce Christ in their attempt to please government officials and politicians to share from their largesse, some of which are ill-gotten.

One is yet to find any verse in the Bible, especially in the New Testament which documented the life and times of Jesus Christ on earth and the Act of the Apostles, where it is expressly written or insinuated that a founder of a gospel ministry owns the ministry and must bequeath the ministry or assets of the ministry such as school, to wife, children or blood relatives. Even Christ had siblings but made Apostle Peter the Chief Apostle and Apostle Paul who was not even one of his 12 disciples, one of his principal Apostles, ahead of his sibling James.

Most founders of gospel ministries in Nigeria behave as if the ministry they founded becomes their conquered territory which must be included in their testament and to be handed to their next-of-kin at their demise. No sooner has the ministry begun to win membership, which Jesus Christ referred to as souls, than the founders discover another pursuit: The amassment of wealth and worldly acclaim or popularity. They begin to aspire to gain all the riches of the world. Many of them are associated with stupendous wealth which they obviously acquired in the course of propagating the gospel. They see such wealth as personal property and not for the entire members of the ministry or the church at large. For them, the wealth becomes their ‘reward’ for the propagation of the gospel, which must not be shared with anyone outside their immediate family. They also prefer to keep this wealth to themselves rather than ensuring that it is used for the propagation of the gospel and the welfare of the flock.

These ministers hobnob with powerful people in the society who initially courted their relationship simply because of what they perceive as the power of God and anointing of the Holy Spirit in them. Many of these ministers become overwhelmed by the sheer wealth these powerful people command. In their awe they begin to behave as if these powerful people were more important than the calling of God upon their lives which compels them to draw men to God. They begin to do the bidding of these powerful people even when they can see that some of the doings of these men do not give glory to God. Before long, they begin to backslide in their callings because their vision and calling have changed. Their focus and vision become riches and wealth and all the attendant worldly ‘glory’, what the scripture describes as “vanity upon vanity”.

In a large number of cases, the collateral damage becomes the members who

were supposedly won to Christ. Many of them also lose the focus of the Cross of Jesus Christ and begin to focus on material things, just like their spiritual mentors. In the process, the ministries begin to frustrate the operation of the Holy Spirit given to the believers. Flamboyance becomes the culture of the church, no longer the power to manifest signs and wonders. Believers become powerless in the face of confrontations by the devil and his agents and so, there is hardly any discernable difference between the believer that has been given power to be the Sons of God and the carnal man on the street that has not accepted Christ. This, obviously, explains why the government of the day will decide to interfere with the affairs of the church.

The government must be shown by signs and wonders that they have no jurisdiction to meddle in the affairs of the church. But that is after the church gets its act right and retrace its steps to its first love and realize that anyone that has the love of this world and its ostentations, the love of God and His constituency; the church is not in that person. This text from the book of 1Corinthians chapter 12 verses 25 to 27 will suffice to drum home the onerous responsibility of the church leaders: “That there should be no schism in the body (church); but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular”.

Educationtell

There is no doubt that Mr. Olumide Akpata, the newly sworn-in 30th President of the Nigerian Bar Association is inheriting a Bar that is divided. The first seemly division was prior to the election that brought him into power as a result of an uproar generated by an assertion attributed to a very Senior Lawyer that was rooting for the reservation of the NBA presidency solely for the Senior Advocates of Nigeria.When the election was eventually lost by two SANs to a Non SAN, those aggrieved by the election result were threatening to create a parrarell bar.Before that controversy could die down , the disinviation of Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State suddely became another big issue in the NBA politics. Almost around the same time Mr. Akpata was being sworn- in as the New President of the NBA ,the news was going round that a group of lawyers from the Northern part of the country who were aggrieved by the disinvitation of what was perceived as injustice to El-Rufai had declared the formation of what was called the New Nigerian Bar Association (NNBA). When I read the news, the question I asked was that : Were those lawyers following the pattern of those conventional politicians who formed the New People Democratic Party (nPDP) from the mainstream PDP or the Reformed All Progressive Congress (rAPC) from the APC? Did anything come out of those “new parties” formed by the political Protestants?

I was one of those involved in the war of pen against the decision of the NBA NEC disinviting El-Rufai from the just concluded NBA virtual conference.The question I asked in my write-up titled, BETWEEN NBA AND EL-RUFAI : A WALK ON A TIGHT ROPE https://lawyerwaka.com/between-nba-and.el-rufai-a.walk.on.the.tight.rope/ was whether the anticident of El-Rufai as a controversial speaker or personality was on unknown to the NBA before he was invited in the first place ? While many lawyers and non lawyers commended the said write up as a brilliant and thought provoking, some of our colleagues insulted, abused, attacked and called me all sort of unprintable names for expressing my personal view. There is this lawyer that called himself “Steve Sun” on the social media. He said that he deliberately approved my post on his platform so that lawyers would be able to LAMBAST me on his platform. When the purported lambasting started from him and his comrades, it was a great war of written words between me and them, but when “Steve Sun” could no longer bear the bombardment and the crossfires; he blocked my right to reply on his platform and cowardly ran away. This is a man that always raises unnecessary dust on the social media. Prior to the just concluded elections of the National Officers, he did a fake public poll that a particular candidate would win the position of the General Secretary but his fake prediction never came to pass. When the election result finally came out, “Steve Sun” made a post on his platform trying to ridicule the lawyers from the core West that they had again been defeated by the lawyers of the Mid-West in the race for the NBA Presidency.Is “Steve Sun” a kind of lawyer to be taken serious?

Was it a crime to express one’s personal opinion? Why must I lose a sleep because someone like “Steve Sun” called me names when he could not write a strong rejoinder by quoting me words for words to prove me wrong? There are lawyers in our midst who do not like reading but complaint of an essay being too long or asking someone to summarize for them apart from making other irrational comments.Can those lawyers afraid of reading what they called “long essay or thesis” perform very well if they are appointed as judicial officers whose duties are to read volumes of documents in forms of court processes including written submission, record of proceedings and briefs of arguments before writing their judgments? Their attitude has justified the assertion that standard is fallen in the legal profession. Any person that is afraid of reading and writing does not worth being a lawyer!

I was not the only one that disagreed with the decision of the NBA NEC on the issue of invitation and disinvitation of El-Rufai. Many lawyers and non lawyers equally disagreed with that decision, Dr Reuben Abati, an ex-aide to a former President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan in his column of 25/8/2020, a day after mine titled NBA Vs. EL-RUFAI said:

“…By disinviting him to the 60th NBA 60th General Conference, the NBA submitted itself to the will of an aggressive and vocal minority in a manner that could affect the future of the NBA negatively .Most of the people that signed the petition against Nasir El-Rufai come across like persons who nurse personal grudges against him and who failed to look at the big picture….NBA should not be politicized.It must not be personalized .It mus not be used to settled ,ethnic or personal scores. The decision to uninvite Nasir el-Rufai to this year’s NBA which commences tomorrow is a major low in the history of the NBA…”

Some people have argued that there was no big deal in the disinvitation of El-Rufai,that he was not the first victim of such disinvitation that Professor Maurice Iwu, a former Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was once a victim as such NBA owed nobody apology for doing that .My response was that if the NBA has been involving in such act, it is high time NBA stops that . I am of the view that it will be unjust to ask for a consent of a speaker and after consenting,you publish it and send an invitation to him only for you to later embarrass him with disinvitation.To me, this will be unreasonable and irrational to the extreme.If the Conference Organizing Committee is not independent to determine the speakership,then let the NBA NEC first approves the speakers before they are contacted for their consents and invitation send to them.It was for this that I disagree with those saying the NBA owes nobody apology. Except there was a scheme on the ground to deliberately disgrace or ridicule those people invited and later disinvited, I believe both Maurice Iwu and Nasir El-Rufai needed to be apologized to for the embarrassment caused to them by the NBA. If I were the new President, I would soon personally visit both Maurice Iwu and Nasir El-Rufai to apologize to them for the embarrassment caused to them by the NBA.

There is also a strange argument going around even among the Senior Lawyers that NBA NEC on its decision on disinvation being not a court cannot be accused of violating the principle of fair hearing. I for one cannot buy into this newly invented definition. Must a body be a court or tribunal to embrace the principle of fair hearing? If I may ask: Was the NBA BOT a court or tribunal when deliberating on the petition of Deacon Adeshina requesting for the cancellation of the last election? Did the BOT hear from the Electoral Committee before arriving at its decision not to cancel the election? Please forget for the sake of this argument whether the BOT decision was right or not. My advice to those flying that irrational argument is to go and do proper legal research to honestly see whether their newly “invented definition” can hold water or not. Before God passed judgment on Adam for eating the forbidden fruit, did He not give him fair hearing? When Yoruba say that an elder that listen to one side but does not listen to the other side in a dispute is a wicked person , what are they talking about?

The need has arisen for the NBA to change the sytle of its invitation of those to be invited to its programmes and conference. I absolutely share and agree with the view expressed by a learned Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chris Uche when answering the question, what is a Law Conference? He said:

“This is the question we must honestly ask ourselves .We must return to the basics. Annual Bar Conference in those days used to be our professional forum for talking to ourselves about our profession and improving ourselves professionally.We brought distinguished professionals in law who had excelled in their various fields to speak to us .We interacted among ourselves .We lost it the moment we started using Bar leadership as platform to reach out to political leaders.We have no business bringing politicians to our Conference to address us. It’s being mutually abused .This is what is killing the Association. In those days (mid-80 as I can well remember) we attended NEC meetings without being hosted by or visiting any Governor. It was our own thing until that changed and it now became the norm that every Governor in whose State we took NEC to ,must give us N5 million and talk to us.I’m sure the amount must have increased by now. Let us all retrace our steps, and reclaim our profession. We are losing it.”

Will the new President, Olumide Akpata take us back to the glorious days? Those NBA leaders that went about collecting money from politicians are not doing that in the interest of the bar but for their own selfish interest. They were not on the same pedestrian with that late great Bar Leader, Alao Aka-Basorun alias “MAO” who would never compromise the interest of lawyers for any personal gain. The rat race among some senior lawyers to become the NBA President with the view to get appointed as the Attorney of the Federation by the Military junta in the earlier 90s led to the demise of the NBA at that time.

The inaugural speech given Mr. Olumide Akpata as the new NBA President is filled with a lot of hope for the better of the profession. He is fully aware of the problems on the ground when he said:

“….I am not unaware of the very recent events and agitation that have tended to divide our Bar along regional and religious lines. This is rather unfortunate for an egalitarian Association like ours. The Bar that I want to lead henceforth is one that is united on all fronts and that recognizes that our diversity is, perhaps, our greatest strength .I plead with all Nigerian lawyers to bear this philosophy of unity in mind as we commence a new journey together today…..I saw many Nigerian lawyers who had either lost faith or had never been interested in the NBA participate with utmost enthusiasm in the hope that things would become better.I restate that this victory is for our colleagues who have become disillusioned with the NBA and how the Association appears to be disconnected from the challenged that faced its members It is progressive lawyer who refused to accept the status quo and took firm steps to ensure that things are done better…”

The burden is now on Mr. Olumide Akpata to immediately take step to call those who are aggrieved to the round table for proper and serious discussion on how to really unite the bar. The new President should ignore those who are trying to provoke those who are already aggrieved by the recent events at the bar. NBA does not need any parallel association now but we need to reform the present NBA to embrace all its members. I commend the President for the Committee set up to be headed by Mr. Ayo Akintunde (SAN) as I have no doubt in his competence to discharge any assignment given to him. After the conclusion of the NBA Lagos branch election last year, I wrote this about him:

“… The Electoral Committee headed by Chief Akintunde again did a wonderful job which it has been doing for many years now. Chief Akintunde is a person I can recommend for any electoral assignment whether nationally or internationally. We have a personality in our branch that the NBA at national level can look up to, to deliver a free and fair election in the nearest future.Chief Ayodele Akintunde (SAN) is a person that will not compromise as he is a principled man. I congratulate him and all members of his committee for making history again.

If I were Mr. Olumide Akpata, I would also go ahead to constitute a Sport Committee to organize a friendly Football March among lawyers in the sense that all the branches within each state of the federation including Abuja should form a football team to compete for what will be called NBA Cup among state bar. This was the magic I used to unite the Campus Journalists during our undergraduate in the university. During the years of General Sani Abacha’s self succession bid, the leadership of the National Association of Campus Journalists (NACJ), Usmanu Dan Fodiyo University, Sokoto Chapter compromised their positions with those promoting the Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) and by this various Press Clubs under the Association were divided and there was press war on campus. When I later got elected as the President of the Association, I used the Football Competition to unite all the press clubs. Therefore this is one of the ways we can unite the lawyers in the NBA.

To have a united National Officers leading the NBA, the leader must be transparent by carrying all executives members along in decision making. The leader must avoid the attitude of the sole administratorship and usurpation of the powers of other executive members as this may lead to conflict and misunderstanding. Many leaders are still unable to do away with this kind of attitude which seems to have become rooted in the NBA politics and often create problems within rank of the NBA officers.Mrs Funke Adekoya (SAN) once asserted that :

“Instructively ,the Presidency of the NBA is not a one man show;that is why the President has many National Officers to support him.That is why the President has three Vice Presidents,has a treasurer,has a financial secretary ,has a welfare and a legal adviser.And if everybody is allowed to do their jobs,then it is not a stressful exercise at all .The problems that we are actually seeing in the Bar Association today is that people are trying to put all the powers of all the officers in one place ,that is not what it is supposed to be.”

The above observation was made by the learned silk about six years ago, but the business is still as usual as at the last outgone NBA National Officers wherein Dr. Foluke Dada , the outgone 2nd Vice President accused Mr. Paul Usoro (SAN) of turning the NBA Presidency to the Sole Administratorship.She said PUSAN attempted to assign his kinsman to perform her constitutional duties but she resisted the move. Anyone that has been involved in NBA politics would surely have one story or the other to tell. I once served in the NBA Lagos executives and the experience was not all that pleasant. When I contested for a position and I won, I had it in mind I would pressurize the executives as to the reality of our branch secretariat or bar centre as our branch had existed for years without one to show for it.

When I joined the branch in 2002 immediately I was called to the bar, there was in circulation a Newsletter called NBA LAGOS BAR but later ceased to exist. When I became the Publicity Secretary of the branch, I made an attempt to revive it but did not get the necessary official support. Then from my own personal purse I began to publish a monthly newsletter I called THE BRIEFCASE which I circulated among members during the monthly meeting of our branch.Whenever I hear anyone complaining be marginalized, I just laugh and say that is the NBA politics for you. I remember vividly very well that I started sending monthly meeting notice to member online as Publicity Secretary, some people brought the useless argument that it was the General Secretary that suppose to be doing that.In NBA politics if you are not patient you will always be at loggerhead with those who may want to frustrate you. Another problem with the NBA politics is that many Presidents or branch Chairmen come to the office with their own person hidden agenda that may not be in the interest of the Association but for their own selfish interest and that is why they want to marginalize everyone other officers. Many NBA leaders prefer wasting Millions of naira on merrymaking like organizing Bar Dinners that would last for just few hours than stocking their Bar Secretariat Library if they have any with useful material that will be of benefit to all the members.

While congratulating and welcoming Mr. Olumide Akpata and his new team to the NBA House, I must commend his very impressive inaugural speech wherein he has highlighted his great mission for the NBA. His promise of free 2 packs of 48 stamps for every lawyer that pays his or her annual bar practicing fee on or before the 31st March 2021 is wonderful and well thought. Perhaps for the first time in many years, lawyers are now to derive benefit from the NBA. If were Mr. Olumide Akpata , I will move a bit further to print NBA dairy for lawyers that will have the NBA Constitution as annexture as majority of its members are not familiar with the contents of the Constitution apart from the fact that it needs to be amended to make it more democratic and non discrimianatory.

NOTE: Anyone is at liberty to disagree with my above submissions as I will surely appreciate a balanced, fair and objective rebuttal.

08055476823, 08164683735: [email protected]), 30th August 2020