The Nigerian Bar Association, Ikeja Branch 2012 Elections will go down in history as the worst in the annals of the elections itself as the Tiger Bar (Branch) of the Nigerian Bar Association. I make the above submission with every sense of responsibility notwithstanding that several of the candidate/supporters including the Publisher of this magazine/journal were returned at the polls.
When thee members of the Electoral Committee leaded by Mr. Oladosu Ogunniyi past Chairman of the Branch, Mrs. Funmi Falana wife of the Prominent Hunman Right Activist/Lawyer and Mr. Reginald Ugwuadu emerged at the highly charged 2012 monthly meeting, the expectations were high that the Electoral Committee going by the credentials and experience if members possessed the necessary where they conducted elections into various offices of the Ikeja Branch of the NBA that had become highly polarized along ethnic and ideological lines.
Given the fact that none of the members of the Electoral Committee is known to have sympathy for any of the political tendencies in the Ikeja NBA the Electoral Umpires were seen to be perfectly suited in the job at this most critical period in the life of NBA Ikeja. Alas, no sooner had the Electoral Committee entered upon its job, that the Committee started exhibiting its lack of competence for its mandate. By an interpretation of the Ikeja NBA Bye Laws which borders on crass and mindless Legalism the committee proceeded to disqualify all candidates nominated for the election as being ineligible.
When it became obvious that there can not be an election without candidates and there was no place in the NBA Ikeja Bye – Laws either for extending the tenure of the present administration or for appointing a caretaker the Electoral Committee made a policy somersault that accommodated practically all candidates. Next, was the criteria for voting, the committee in its wisdom, ought to make responsible practitioners of lawyers, an otherwise ideal proposition, that those to vote at the Branch Election must have paid their practicing fees as at 31st March 2012. This was by the 3rd week of April by which time the elections were less than 3weeks away.
Nevertheless, the Electoral Committee compiled a list of 2,777 members who had met their financial obligations to the Branch and were eligible to vote at the Elections scheduled for the 7th May 2012. This was on or around the 26th April 2012 when all payments by all eligible voters was to cease.
The requirement of practicing fees the electoral committee claimed was based on section 3 and 10 of the Branch’s Bye-Laws. These sections will be examined closely later. If all the 2,777 registered voters thought they were going to vote at the elections they were highly mistaken.
In the run up to the elections, there was an aggressive drive by all candidates particularly those for the Chairmanship post for voters registration. In order to check incidence of fake lawyers registering to vote or even full fledged lawyers but non-members of Ikeja Branch voting as mercenaries, a number of requirements were put in place for lawyers registering for the first time to vote the Ikeja branch irrespective of age at the Bar.
The weeks leading up to the elections were very testy times for the administrative staff of the NBA Ikeja as lawyers, coerced, cajoled even bullied their way into being registered for the coming elections.
On or about the 3rd of May 2012, a group of lawyers who could not bully their way into being registered as voters in the coming elections instituted an action in court to stop the 7th May 2012 elections or any elections at any other time.
Before the filing of the said suit the Electoral Committee had also resolved to allow candidates who had earlier been disqualified for failure to attend 7 meetings in the year preceding the election year by adding the month of April though the time for filing nomination closed in March.
But on the issue of qualification for voting at the elections, the electoral body was adamant that practicing Fees Receipt will be used, a policy a cross section of the voting Bar felt was not supported by the Branch’s Bye-Law and had never been used at any previous elections and was introduced very late in the day without adequate publicity.
To resolve all these outstanding issues and also give the candidates an opportunity to meet with the electorate and present a blue print of their visions for the Branch a press/manifesto day was fixed for Friday the 4th May, 2012.
However, on the said date the Law suit filed the previous day dominated discussions though the issue of criteria for voting, that is whether or not to use Annual Practising fees also featured prominently. Both of these issues were hotly discussed without any form of decision reached. The House was divided as to whether or not the elections could proceed the next Monday in view of the newly filed court action, while the group felt that being aware of the pending court action no elections could hold in the face of the celebrated case of OJUKWU V LAGOS STATE GOVT. Others tried to distinguish the authority on the ground that there was no existing court order or judgement as in the Ojukwu case which violation could be seen as an affront and contemptious to the jurisdiction of the court.
On the issue of practicing fees, the committee stuck to his guns based on her interpretation of Sections 3 and 10 of the Branch’s Bye-Laws, which though cited at every turn but was not read to the House. A verbatim reading of the sections would reveal that neither deals with qualification for voting at the elections, section 3 deals with qualification for membership of the Branch, while section 10 deals with the qualifications of elected officers of the Branch.
The meeting ended abruptly as the press/manifesto day event could not hold in the midst of so much confusion.
It was however resolved that a group of elders and leaders of thought of the Branch would lianse with the aggrieved members who went to Court with a view to amicably settle the matter over the weekend so that elections could proceed on Monday 7th may 2012. In this regard the outgoing executive of the Branch though the office of the General Secretary was mandated to make overtures to the aggrieved members to accommodate their request to be registered to vote.
The aggrieved members spurned the overtures of the executive raising the issue that they do not see how they would be accommodated in their bid to vote when the time for registration had since elapsed. Thus by the time of the meeting at which election was to have held on Monday 7th May 2012 the Court matter was still very much alive and elections had to be postponed as the house was very much divided on the issue of whether the elections could proceed in view of the Court matter even in the absence of any Court order.
The view of those who counseled caution prevailed. Thus the election was postponed till Wednesday 9th May 2012 on the condition that the Court matter will be resolved before then. On Tuesday the 8th May 2012, the Court matter was promptly settled by filing of Terms of Settlement and there was a general sigh of relief that the elections scheduled for Wednesday 9th May 2012 will go ahead as schedule. The issue of qualification to vote which had paled into insignificance was still however unresolved.
On Election day, 9th May 2012, eligible voters turned out in mass to vote candidates of their choice, but almost from the beginning there were problems; many who had not followed closely the developments of the last few days preceding to the election came virtually unprepared to vote, many did not bring copies of their Practicing Fees and their Call to Bar Certificate to the election venue at the Bar Centre of the Ikeja High Court premises. The last requirement which was barely mentioned at the meeting of Friday the 4th may 2012, had somehow re-surfaced courtesy of the electoral Committee.
Thus scores of eligible voters, young and old whose names had appeared on the list of Voters were turned back in their droves. Many however who had watched closely the activities of the electoral Committee and its rigid and technical approach to the voting exercise came prepared for this contingency by bringing Original Copies of their highly certified Call to Bar Certificate or at least photocopies. But the majority were caught off-guard with some daring to go back to their far flung abode to retrieve these document which most keep in their “holy of holies”. But to many whose Call to bar certificates were hundred of miles away in their home states and state of origin, it was a mission impossible some resorted to dragging friends and colleagues to vouch for their membership or the Bar with mixed success particularly for old and well known practitioners. But that was the tip of the Ice Berg compared to what was to occur next it was then announced that the Electoral Committee was insisting as earlier indicated on the payment of annual practical fees and that in line with the strict statutory requirement of the Legal Practitioners Act, only practitioners who had paid their fees on or before the 31st March 2012 would be allowed to pay every attempt to get the Committee to reverse this rule for those who had paid their fees after the 31st march 2012 met with a brick wall. Of particular interest was the fact that the bulk of lawyers from the Lagos State Ministry of Justice and various agencies of the said Ministry, like office of Public Defender OPD had paid their practice fees on bloc by budgetary allocation and approval in 2012. An appeal by the Solicitor General Lawal Pedro SAN by phone to explain the bureaucratic workings of the government practicing fees were paid for on bloc by Government for all legal officers after specifically budgetary allocation in April 2012 was rebuffed as well as the appeal by the state Attorney-General Mr. Ade Ipaye. The Electoral Committee however said that the state counsel will be allowed to vote by 3.30pm but backed out when supporter of certain candidates who had been allowed either by negligence or deliberately to gain access into the election venue physically overwhelmed members of the Electoral committee threatening to disrupt the electoral process if the legal officer were allowed to vote. According to these rowdy characters (presumed-lawyers) some other lawyers sympathetic to their candidates had been turned back for not paying their practicing fees on or before the 31st March 2012 and thus there can be no exception for the state counsel since as the saying goes what is good for the geese is good for the gander.
Other lawyers, not state counsel, disturbed by this ugly and unprecedented trend when a whole section of the Bar, the official Bar would be disenfranchised due to manipulation of a desperate crop of Bar Politicians and a weak and indecisive Electoral committee, waded in trying to get the Electoral committee to assert itself and do the right thing. The scene became rowdy and several times almost degenerated into the physical attacks and fisticuffs.
All through the legal officers, Directors, Assistant directors, Senior Legal Officers and Junior alike waited particularly and calmly outside under a canopy believing that good reason will prevail in the end. But when by 3.30pm, 30 minutes to the officially declared end of voting it was obvious that they will not be allowed to have a say in the matter of the leadership if the Bar of which they are an integral part and which they support massively with their resources they left calmly but mournfully.
Thus Mrs. Margaret Adewale, of LASTMA, Mrs. Tola Rotimi of O.P.D, Mrs. Bose Ayodele former D.P.P and Mrs. Tutu Adebayo a member of the executive committee of the NBA Ikeja could not vote at the Ikeja Branch of the NBA elections despite their names being on the list of voters as financial members and contributing tremendously to the activities of the Branch materially and otherwise till date as Ex-officio members of the Executive members of 2009 Local Organisation Committee etal/magine.
By this singular act of recklessness the bond of harmony and fellowship existing between the official and private Bar at the Ikeja Bar may have been shattered. Imagine the private and official Bar at war; think of getting Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), Governor’s consent at Alausa, on behalf of Clients, processing various administrative applications and approvals or trying to fast track the D.P.P.’s advice in a criminal matters and various other activities and endeavors which bring the private and official Bar together professionally and which no private legal practitioner can successfully do without assistance and co-operation from the official Bar. Not to talk of the huge financial donations and support for various N.B.A projects and events. Some smart alec on being confronted with the prospect of the official Bar withdrawing all manner of financial support for the Ikeja bar boasted that if a particular candidate emerged the NBA Ikeja chairman, finances would readily be raised from Alaba and Onitsha
The 2012 NBA Ikeja Elections are now over and Mr. Monday Onyekachi Ubani has now emerged the Branch’s Chairman for the 2012-2014 period. I congratulate him once again as I have earlier done privately, though both of us are not in doubt that I did not support his candidature, a choice I am entitled to.
I wish him well in the onerous task he has ahead of him of leading a highly polarized Ikeja bar polarized along ethnic and ideological lines and now along the lines of the private and official Bar. A an avowed Bridge-Builder, he will need all in his arsenal to navigate the ship of the Ikeja bar through the storm and turbulence the 2012 Ikeja Bar elections has generated. He deserves all her support in this trying period irrespective of whatever grudges we are nursing about the recently concluded election. This is not the time for frivolous court actions to undo what has been done but of fence-mending and service to the highly respected and vibrant Ikeja Branch of the NBA. Afterall NBA office is about service to the profession and community at large and not do-or-die politics to corner office for personal gains and aggrandizement.
To the Progressive Caucus that has held indubitable sway in the affairs of the Ikeja NBA for the last eight years, they should respect the wish of the voting electorate at this point in time. In any case, democracy is about plurality and the NBA should be allowed to compare the gains of the Bar under their watch wish what other political tendencies can offer in the next 2 years Nature abhors domination and there is a sense their perceived domination has inspired a movement for change even where that change is merely for change sake. So let the progressive take a back seat for now and re-evaluate their strategies for continued relevance in Ikeja NBA affairs.
The Ikeja NBA 2012 elections have come and gone but for giving us an elections which would be remembered for a longtime to come for all the wrong reasons thumbs down to the electoral Committee of Mr. Oladosu Ogunniyi, Mrs. Funmi Falana and Mr. Reginald Ugwuadu. And for my entirely personal opinion/offer no apologies and take full responsibility.
