“There is a great difference between mob activism rooted in egotistical self-help and undiluted obedience to rule of law. Where the rule of law reigns supreme rule of force and majoritarian tyranny has no room for survival. We speak law in practice and not a theory of law.” – Jibrin Okutepa, SAN
On the 23rd day of August 2022, the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja faulted the ratification of the suspension of Mrs. Joyce Oduah as the GS of NBA by NBA NECouncil during the pendency of an action challenging the lawfulness and or legality of her suspension by NBA NEC.
It described the action of the NBA NECouncil in the ratification of her suspension as GS during the pendency of her action in court as a breach of the rule of law and subsequently set aside the said ratification which was done to resuscitate the suspension and to give it further life for further action that may lawfully be taken thereafter.
After that decision, many NBA Bar politicians cum those who are legal practitioners came out to say that Mrs. Joyce Oduah was still on suspension. The National Publicity Secretary of NBA in his reaction widely circulated informed the public rightly that what the FHC did was to set aside the ratification of the suspension done during the pendency of litigation, but proceeded with due respect to ingeniously misinform the general public and some Bar politicians that Joyce Oduah is still on suspension. Like in my previous intentions let me say that I will not support misconduct on the part of Joyce Oduah. If she deserves to be punished she must be punished in accordance with due process and as allowed by law. I may not like Joyce Oduah. Members of NBA NEC may no longer want to sit on the same table with her during their remaining tenure which lapses in a few days time, but can the NBA NEC still insists and indeed any lawyer properly admitted to practice law in Nigeria still say that Mrs. Joyce Oduah is still on suspension given the unambiguous language used in the terms of her purported suspension as seen in their own resolution.
The answers to this poser can only be found in the language used to suspend her. This is what NBA NEC said in their resolution No 5 which purported to suspend the GS Mrs. Joyce Oduah pending a fixed date: It reads:
“5. In the meantime, however, in view of the critical importance of the Annual General Meeting which is scheduled to hold on 25th August 2022, and to prevent the General Secretary, Mrs. Joyce Oduah from imperiling the Annual General Meeting, the Annual General Conference or the succession to the next administration by her unilateral and unauthorised communications purporting to be legitimate communications from the Association, the National Executive Committee has unanimously exercised its emergency powers under section 9(6) (d) of the NBA Constitution 2015 (as amended in 2021) to suspend Mrs. Joyce Oduah from office as the General Secretary of the Association with immediate effect pending the Pre-Conference meeting of the NBA-NEC scheduled to hold on Sunday 21st August 2022”.
The suspension of GS Joyce Oduah was pending the pre-conference meeting of the NBA -NEC scheduled to hold on the 21st of August 2022. That meeting ie pref-conference NBA-NEC was held on the fixed date, that is 21st August 2022, in which NBA NECouncil purported to have ratified the suspension which was pending a named event and date. The decision taken at that occasion has been set aside by a judicial decision within the legitimate disciplinary jurisdiction of the Federal High Court.
Any lawyer duly called to the Bar does not need further ingenious beclouded vision to understand resolution No 5 quoted above. How did the NBA National Publicity Secretary and other lawyers who have issues with the style of leadership of GS Joyce Oduah or who may have personal grudges against her, come to their jaundiced conclusions that Joyce Oduah is still on suspension?
As one of my learned friends put it on the Legal Discourse platform “It appears to me that members of this EXCO are intent on deliberately misapprehending the law. This ought to be a time for deep introspection on their part, and not a time for obfuscation, entrenching ambiguity in clear situations, and flinging red herrings about. Their own resolution, which they penned by themselves, tenured their purported suspension to efflux on Sunday. The suspension order did not say “pending when NEC ratifies it”. It pinned the suspension to ratification on Sunday by NEC. That ratification indeed took place, albeit illegally, much to the chagrin of the court which has now restored its majesty over the situation. How then can the National Publicity Secretary, one who ought to be acutely contrite and penitent at this stage, say that the suspension still stands as the court did not nullify it??? If this is the case, why was NEC prompted, both in the resolution and at the meeting to ratify it?? Is an insistence that she is still suspended not tantamount to adding, varying, and subtracting from the judgement, against the express provision of section 128 of the Evidence Act? Let us not even talk about the Rules of Professional Conduct which have been pulverised to smithereens by this disgraceful matter. His position, if properly reported, turns against the express wording of his own resolution which he himself signed. Is that then not a lie? For the life of me, I cannot see what is so special about this General Secretary situation that certain members of the Bar have chosen it as an altar upon which they would like to be so sacrificed. While they can choose this option for themselves, should they be allowed to demarket, demystify and reduce the estimation of Nigeria’s professional body of lawyers on top of Joyce Oduah? Do they have that mandate?? The proverbial physician is still refusing to heal itself”.
I cannot improve more on what this learned mind said. Another learned friend again on the same forum posited on this matter and I quote him thus:
“Please, do people cease to be lawyers immediately they become NBA excos? Because I really do not understand what this Publicity Secretary is doing with this misinformation. Are we sure these our excos are not planning another show of shame with this hint provided by their Publicity Secretary? I think the embarrassment should be enough by now. Do you really need another court order to tell you that you have failed, when you suspended someone “pending” the doing of a thing/the happening of an event”, which said condition subsequent eventually failed/was nullified by the court”. ” By this our learned friend’s misinterpretation, imagine the court grants an exparte injunction pending the hearing of a motion on notice; then the motion on notice was heard and granted, then you appeal the Ruling on the Motion on Notice to the Court of Appeal and the COA sets aside the Ruling on the Motion on Notice. Will it still lie in anyone’s mouth to argue that what was set aside is the Ruling on the Motion on Notice, that the ex parte order still subsists? This learned friend of ours will confidently and erroneously argue that since the COA did not set aside the ex parte order, that the respondent is still bound by the exparte order.”
” I will humbly advice all our excos, intending excos, and NBA politicians to take their practice of the law an inch as seriously as they are taking NBA politics. If they do/are doing so, we would have been spared of some of these unpardonable blunders”.
Honestly, this Joyce Oduah saga is a serious lesson to us as lawyers. As I keep saying NBA is a professional Association. No lawyer was called to NBA. Let us not introduce the attitudes of conventional politicians into NBA politics where we fight dirty even when there is no need. As lawyers, we are learned friends. We are not learned enemies. The hallmark of and the nobility of this profession is the ability to throw in the towel when the law is against you.
No lawyer was trained to insist on what he or she wants even when the law says he or she cannot have what he or she wants. In this case let us take this Joyce Oduah case as a case study of how, as lawyers, we must be patient to fight a cause we reasonably believe in within the ambit of the rule of law and couch our intentions in precise terms of what we desired to achieve. If the desire of the Olumide Akpata-led NBA NEC was that it did not want to see Joyce Oduah near the conference venue to function as GS, it woefully failed to communicate so in resolution 5 supra.
In my humbly but firm view, the pending case has nothing to do with the question of whether Joyce Oduah is still on suspension. No, it has not. It only has to do with the question of whether members of NBA NEC who purported to have suspended her from the office she was elected by those who loved her, pending pre-Conference NEC of NBA which held on 21st August 2022 had the constitutional right to do so.
That question is still a live constitutional question for the benefit of NBA and NBA Bar politicians. But certainly not about whether Joyce Oduah is still on suspension as GS. The suspension whether rightly or wrongly has lapsed by effluxion of time. The only decision that gave life and oxygen to the suspension was set aside by the decision of FHC on 23rd August 2022. The suspension no longer has life support. It no longer has life. It does not exist and it cannot exist as of now. It will be an abuse of language to say Joyce Oduah is still on suspension after the decision of Hon Justice A R Mohammed of the Federal High Court rendered on the 23rd of August 2022. This is my firm but the honest view and it will pay NBA and the image of the legal profession better to avoid any rowdy and thuggish actions in the remaining period of the conference that could further damage the already battered and damaged image of the legal profession in Nigeria.
