‘WHY WE APPOINTED UBANI AS GOVERNING COUNCIL MEMBER,’ BY AFBA

The African Bar Association (AfBA) is set to admit immediate past Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law (NBA-SPIDEL), Dr. Monday Ubani, as a member of its Governing Council.

According to a letter signed by the Secretary-General of AfBA, Flaviana Charles, the Executive Council of AfBA arrived at the decision at its August 2023 meeting in Pretoria, South Africa. The decision followed Ubani’s recommendation by the association’s Qualifications Committee based on his leadership qualities and contributions to the legal profession in Nigeria and Africa.

The Governing Council is AfBA’s highest decision-making organ led by a Chairman, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General. It sets policies, makes vital decisions and provides oversight on the association’s activities. Members are selected from registered AfBA members to further the association’s interests and foster a united African legal community.

If confirmed, Ubani will be admitted as an ‘African Bar Councilor’ (ABC) which is the title for council members. He will serve an initial two-year term and pay an annual membership fee starting from $300. Councilors who contribute $1000 or more in a year get exempted from paying conference fees.

In her letter, the Secretary-General said Ubani’s impending admission into the council is an honour and rare privilege. He has been requested to indicate acceptance of the offer and provide a 50-word profile to complete the process.

CITY LAWYER recalls that Ubani’s tenure as NBA-SPIDEL Chairman witnessed many significant milestones especially in human rights protection and advocacy. His fiery activism and readiness to speak truth to power has earned him many awards and accolades.

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ELECTIONS: UBANI URGES AFRICAN COUNTRIES TO DEPLOY TECHNOLOGY

The Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law (NBA-SPIDEL), Dr. Monday Ubani has urged African countries to deploy technology in order to enable the populace to elect quality leaders that will turn around its fortunes.

Ubani spoke while presenting a paper as a Panelist at the ongoing African Bar Association (AfBA) Conference in Lilongwe, Malawi.

The session, which was chaired by Dr. Samson Osagie, former Minority Whip in Nigeria’s House of Representatives, had its theme as “Good Governance: Firming up the pillars of Good Governance in Africa – Building strong institutions as a critical factor.”

The NBA-SPIDEL helmsman stated that for the African continent to throw up the kind of leadership that will resolve its myriad of challenges, “the electoral system must be re-engineered and sanitized through reduction of human interference in the process. What that means is that technology should replace the human interface in certain critical areas of our electoral system.”

He gave example of Nigeria’s new Electoral Act 2022 which identified accreditation and collation as areas where destructive disruption occurs, saying that “The new Act has deployed technology in those critical areas and the consequence is that Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) and transmission of results from the polling units to INEC server are now part of the substantive law and Electoral Guidelines in the country.”

Ubani pointed out that Nigeria has utilized the new Electoral Act in two recent elections at the State level “with positive effect,” adding that “It is almost a hundred per cent reflection of the mandate of the majority in favour of those who were elected.”

He observed that the new Act “has rekindled peoples’ interest in the electoral process and eliminated voter apathy that has been the bane Nigeria’s democratic experience,” noting that deployment of technology in the electoral systems in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi and Kenya “has led to opposition parties securing victory at the polls, a practice that was hitherto a taboo on the continent.”

The top Bar Leader urged African countries to sustain full deployment of technology in all aspects of the electoral process including registration, accreditation, voting, collation and announcement of results, adding that the teething problems associated with such deployment “will be overcome through effective governance.”

According to the leading human rights lawyer, “The African continent has every reason to push for the deployment of technology in the electoral process for therein lies our salvation for the enthronement of the kind of leadership that Africa requires to drive the continent to development and progress.

“It is my extrapolation and I hope we all shall buy into this, and go back home with this idea that our policy makers, lawmakers, and the executives must agree to the wholesome application of technology in our electoral process.”

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