All is set for what promises to be another feisty Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) as estranged Treasurer Caroline Anze-Bishop is set to storm the venue of the meeting today.

Though NBA President, Mr. Yakubu Maikyau SAN had barred Bishop from receiving the financial sponsorship extended by the NBA leadership to other National Officers to attend the ongoing Annual General Conference (AGC), this did not deter the embattled Treasurer from hitting Lagos on the eve of the conference.

This may have set the stage for another clash with Maikyau over the association’s finances.

Bishop told CITY LAWYER yesterday that despite her longstanding quest, she is still sidelined as regards the association’s finances, adding that she was not a party to any financial report to be presented at today’s AGM.

It is recalled that Bishop had in a letter addressed to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN in his capacity as the Chairman of the General Council of the Bar (GCB), urged him to “set-up a high-powered Committee to immediately and thoroughly consider and investigate my concerns.”

The letter was titled “A REPORT OF A PERPETUAL ABUSE OF OFFICE, THE MARGINALIZATION OF THE NBA NATIONAL TREASURER AND URSURPATION (SIC) OF HER DUTIES UNDER THE NBA CONSTITUTION (2021 AS AMENDED) BY THE PERSON OF THE NBA PRESIDENT MR. Y. C. MAIKYAU SAN: AN APPLICATION FOR AN IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION OF THIS COMPLAINT AND FOR YOUR NECESSARY ACTION.”

A similar petition was addressed to the Chairman of the Body of Benchers as well as to NBA Trustees. Bishop had made a similar plea following controversies that trailed the NBA Annual Report and Accounts at the 2023 Annual General Meeting.

Chronicling a litany of allegations which verged on not being permitted or given facilities to discharge her mandate as set out in the NBA Constitution, Bishop wrote: “As it stands now Sir, I know nothing about the Financial Position of the Association or how Mr. President is spending our Association’s finances. He simply does as he wishes and obviously without my involvement or referral to due official templates. In truth, Mr. President and G.S are the NBA Treasurers de facto while I have become a Treasurer who shows up at NEC and other Statutory Meetings to present and adopt an (sic) doctored Financial Report. My duties as contained in Section 9(5)(g) of the NBA Constitution 2021 as amended have been completely hijacked by the General Secretary with the total backing of Mr. President, without the slightest regard to my enshrined Constitutional mandate. It goes without saying therefore that I cannot endorse Annual Financial Report or present same at the subsequent NBA AGM 2024 as the NBA National Treasurer, because my job has once again been hijacked and I am still and left in gross darkness as to the Financial Status of the Bar.

It is quite unfortunate that I am still being marginalized from carrying out my constitutionally sworn duties by Mr. President especially for the second time in a row, and in a manner worse than the previous year. I therefore humbly invite this exalted body to intervene and protect my Office and other National Officers who are subjected to this autocratic leadership of the NBA President. Our public image as a Bar is at an al time low right now and I dare say it may be exposed to further embarrassments courtesy of this trajectory of the NBA President, who would rather be a autocratic than a democratic Leader.

“Decisions are taken to NEC or churned out to Nigerian Lawyers by Mr. President as the resolutions of the National Executive Committee when Official National meetings are scarcely ca led, called epileptically, hardly concluded or never even called. Section 9(6) of the NBA Constitution 2021 as amended provides that a meeting of the National Executive Committee shall hold monthly and that all resolutions are democratically arrived at, but in our given instance the reverse applies substantively. We seldom meet as the National Executive Committee and when we do it is mostly for a Skeletal briefing by Mr. President.”

Continuing, Bishop wrote: “I therefore take this opportunity to tell all Nigerian Lawyers ahead of this year’s Annual General Meeting that the financial affairs of the Association of the Bar are still solely run by Mr. President and who has again ousted the National Treasurer from all financial activities of the Bar I repeat it again that the state of our Finances at the Bar are not transparent or known to me at all because it is Mr. President and the General Secretary that are still running the Finances of the Bar and I ask that this impunity be nibbed in the bud now lest this present unconstitutional action becomes a template and antecedent of action for future Presidents of the Bar. I have voiced out these concerns because the Bar is our commonwealth and in line with my Oath of Office all of our distinguished Colleagues need to have this information of my mandated
Stewardship efforts with Bar Finances and conundrums involved as well, as early as possible for
their needful as Stakeholders Sir.”

Saying that “no President is mandated by the NBA Constitution to takeover, assume or mute the duties of other elected Officials in the name of running the Bar,” Bishop urged Fagbemi to “kindly set-up a high-powered Committee to immediately and thoroughly consider and investigate my concerns as as presented and for your necessary action Sir.”

CITY LAWYER recalls that Bishop has been engaged in a long-drawn battle with the NBA President over claims that she has not been allowed to perform her constitutional role as the financial gatekeeper for the Association.

The face-off peaked during the last AGM when Bishop refused to endorse the financial report, saying that she was not privy to its preparation. The report was not adopted by the NBA Annual General Meeting. There are strong indications that history may repeat itself today.

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