By Abdulrasheed Ibrahim

Not long ago, a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to register the Nigerian Law Society (NLS), a new association of lawyers in Nigeria being led by Chief Bolaji Ayorinde, SAN. The legal battle subsequently moved to the Court of Appeal and Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) then under the leadership of Mr. Y. C. Maikyau, SAN appeared at the Court of Appeal seeking to be joined. NBA was never a party at the Federal High Court, but since it is interested in protecting the NBA’s monopoly in the bar politics, its legal team led by Mr. Y.C. Maikyau, SAN, himself as the then President of the NBA met Chief Joe Gadzama, SAN who was leading the NLS’ legal team at the Court of Appeal in a legal firework. Since the case still seems to be pending before the Court of Appeal, I may not want to go beyond this line for now. But from what is presently going on in the media both conventional and social, the line seems to have been drawn for a very serious rivalry in the Bar Politics as both NBA and NLS have rolled out their respective new executives.

It is interesting to note that Mr. Hussain Ishaq Magaji, SAN, the Registrar General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) had earlier written a letter to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi, SAN seeking for a fiat to prosecute the NLS and other corporate entities for carrying out activities and operations without being registered by the CAC. Chief Ayorinde, SAN has not taken this very lightly and has threatened to drag to the Registrar-General of the CAC to court, if he failed to withdraw the public notice he considered defamatory to him and the NLS within specific number of days. According to Chief Ayorinde, SAN in his reaction:

“In the said part of the judgment, the Honourable Court clearly granted all the Plaintiff’s claims and specifically directed your Commission to register the Nigerian Law Society. Your Commission has failed, refused and or neglected to obey the judgment of the Federal High Court and whose judgment remains extant even though you have filed an appeal on record .It is also noted that despite filing the same appeal , you have not secured any order to stay the direction in the judgment. It is therefore shocking that you will cause the publication under reference to be made despite the above. In the said publication, you alluded as follows: That you have not registered the Nigerian Law Society .That the members of the Nigerian Law Society including my humble self are committing an offence in breach of the law .That the activities of the Nigerian Law Society including my humble self are illegal.”

As at the time of putting this essay together, it is yet to be confirmed whether the CAC has reacted to the threat of litigation from the NLS under the leadership of Chief Ayorinde, SAN. You will recall that upon the suspension of Hon. Nimi Walson-Jack by the NBA from its National Executive Council (NEC) for his involvement in the NLS’ activities, he (Walson-Jack) subsequently proceeded to court to challenge the NBA’s decision, his court action against the suspension did not fly in court as it was held that the NBA has the power to suspend him. Hon. Nimi Walson-Jack is now the Vice President (South) of the NLS. The decision of court in favour of NBA suspending Walson-Jack must have encouraged the NBA to extend similar suspension from its NEC to Steve Abar, Esq., who is now the General Secretary of the NLS. I have once asserted some years back that the split in the NBA was very imminent and certain which has now come to past. When you have an NBA that prides itself as promoting the rule of law but most times acts contrary to the spirit of that theory, this is what you will have at the end of the day. If you have been very conversant and familiar with some of my essays on the NBA politics, you would have come across wordings such as: THE TYRANNY OF MINORITY; ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN THE OTHERS; EMPEROR AND EMPIRE.

There is tyranny of minority when an elected NBA President single-handedly carries on without carrying other elected National Officers along in the scheme of things. That is a typical example of converting the office of the NBA President to that of the Sole Administrator. There is George Orwell’s Animal Farm theory when members of the NBA are only expected to pay their subscriptions with the franchise to vote but cannot be voted for as well as the unnecessary disqualification of candidates from contesting elections in NBA. Before now some provisions contained in the NBA Constitution used to be more discriminatory to most members of NBA than now. With all these kinds of happenings in a professional association, how do you expect everyone to move along without deciding to go their own ways? This is a very big lesson for those coming up or contemplating forming of new associations just like the NLS.

There should not be any excitement whenever any new group or association is coming on board. To roll out the drums to celebrate the arrival of a new association or a political party in Nigeria is like celebrating the pregnancy of a new bride that is yet to be born. It is only God ,the creator that makes the pregnancy a reality that really knows what will become of that pregnancy. There is no better way to illustrate this than what is presently happening in the nation’s political landscape. Nigerians are always yearning for good leaders with the full commitment to the path of democracy but despite this, the contemporary political leaders are yet to live up to the yearning of the Nigerians. Their positive expectations from the leaders are often met with disappointments and the gnashing of teeth. For instance, since the return of democracy in 1999, the People Democratic Party (PDP) ruled the country for 16 years contrary to its boast that it would ruled for 60 years. With the coming together of some political parties that metamorphosed into the present ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) that defeated the PDP in the 2015 General elections, the expectations are yet to be met. Since the APC came to power with the slogan of CHANGE, nothing has changed and the situation has been like from fire to fry pan. The country has remained worse than when the APC came into power and this is so because it is almost the same set of politicians that used to be in PDP that later came to the APC and vice versa. The country is seriously under the conquest of the capitalist politicians rather than the real socialist politicians that probably would have meant well for the Nigerians with what the country is blessed with.

Since the stage in now set with the introduction of both the new executives of the NBA and NLS, it will be very interesting in the days to come to see how the Bar Politics will play itself out among the lawyers in this country. With the NBA already having over 100 branches across the country, how the NLS intends to go about recruiting members to its fold from across the country will be very exciting. Most of the lawyers that presently constitute the new NLS executives used to be very strong members and stakeholders in the NBA but now that they have parted ways with the NBA, whether they will able to rival the NBA in spreading their new gospel to attract lawyers into their fold will equally be very interesting. With the serious lamentations still coming from many lawyers on the just concluded NBA conference, will some of them consider the NLS as an alternative? A lawyer on the social media seems to have decided to opt for the NLS. According to the lawyer:

“The 2024 NBA AGM is the worst in the recent years leading credence to the assertion that the Association has run out of ideas and it is on throes of Hooks’ law .You hold an AGM without financial report ,no A.O.B, no question for institutional report .The presiding officer alone talking for hours without end and none of the SANs, Benchers , Forum leaders , Senior lawyers who have been attending meetings could call this thing to order. I am even talking of lack of conference bags, detail program and even a one stop shop system to reduce movements from one long place to the other. While Association leaders were busy squashing monies in high cost hostels, others especially young lawyers were lumped together in six persons in a room. Operators of joints in the mammi market said they paid the sum of N200,000 for a square meter space for three to four days leading to the exorbitant cost of items including food. It was not a secret that the NBA leadership received monumental sponsorship from government and corporate bodies yet the difficulties and suffering encountered during the just concluded NBA AGC is inexplicable .The most annoying aspect is no one spoke to condemn this orchestrated and deliberate acts foisted on innocent lawyers .After all these misgivings you tender a nonsense apologies intended to make the open squander mania a culture at the branch levels. If AGM is organized in this fashion then no need to worry oneself .The 2024 AGM is indeed regrettable .One can say unequivocally that anything Chonoko Meikyau and his cohorts in his ship of exco should not happen again to the NBA and or let the Nigerian Law Society be the new bride.”

The above is just one of numerous lamentations by the lawyers that took part in this year NBA annual conference. If the NLS is now being seen as “the new bride” as I said earlier that is like a pregnant bride, is there anything the NLS will do differently? Will there be any new dawn in the Bar Politics with the arrival of the NLS? When I first saw the motto of the NLS that says “Justice for all”, what immediately came to my mind was the book written by the late Hon. Justice Ephraim Akpata (JSC of blessed memory) titled “Justice for all and by all” . If the message of the NLS by its motto is that all those that have suffered injustice should come to its fold , what are the assurances that those that come to its fold will surely get justice considering the fact that it is pulling out from the NBA whose by its motto prides itself as “promoting the rule of law” but have on occasions acted against that principle which must have prompted the pulling out by the NLS? Is it also not going to be business as usual as seen in the classic case of PDP and APC that have over the years proved to the birds of the same feather? I believe the new leaders of the NLS will be in better position to answer all these questions.

• Ibrahim is a senior lawyer and text writer, and can be reached at abdurasheedibrahim362@gmail.com

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