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‘I’M EAGER TO HEAR FROM YOU,’ ISAAC OGBAH TELLS STAKEHOLDERS

Good afternoon learned silks, distinguished learned seniors and fellow colleagues of this noble legal profession.

My name is Isaac Omuta Ogbah, a candidate for the 3rd Vice President of the NBA in the forthcoming July 16th NBA National elections.

And as a precondition for campaign, all candidates for the various elective positions were mandated to submit their respective CV’s as well as their manifestos to ECNBA for approval and which have been since uploaded into the ECNBA official website.

Kindly use the above link to access all relevant information about myself and manifesto as published by ECNBA, while we look forward to ECNBA publishing other campaign materials that I submitted to them for necessary publication.

I look forward to hearing from you regarding any question, suggestion and enquiry regarding my 3rd Vice President of the NBA candidature. I solicit your support in every way possible towards making me the next 3rd Vice President of the NBA come the 16th day of July, 2022.

I celebrate you now and always. God bless you all.

Isaac Omuta Ogbah

https://www.ecnba.ng/ogbah-isaac-omuta 

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GADZAMA UNVEILS OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN VIDEO

FEATURED

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF THE NIGERIAN BAR ASSOCIATION, JOE-KYARI GADZAMA, SAN UNVEILS HIS OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN VIDEO

On Friday, June 17, 2022, Joe-Kyari Gadzama, SAN released a captivating and passionate video stipulating his plans for the advancement of the Nigerian Bar Association.

In the said video, the renowned bar patriot who has dedicated his life to the service of the bar highlighted his vision for the bar and stated the reasons why he is the best candidate for the position. It is no secret that the eminent silk has served the bar in different sections and various capacities and his contribution to the growth of the legal profession is commendable and inspirational. The Learned Silk’s exceptional track record of excellence indeed makes him the best man for the job.

The Learned Silk as man who speaks truth to power also promised to continue the good works of his learned colleague, Mr. Olumide Akpata.

Kindly watch the video at www.gadzama.com to learn more about the Learned Silk and his plans.

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COPYRIGHT 2022 CITY LAWYER. Please send emails to citylawyermag@gmail.com. Join us on Facebook at https://web.facebook.com/City-Lawyer-Magazine-434937936684320 and on TWITTER at https://twitter.com/CityLawyerMag. To ADVERTISE in CITY LAWYER, please email citylawyermag@gmail.com or call 08138380083. All materials available on this Website are protected by copyright, trade mark and other proprietary and intellectual property laws. You may not use any of our intellectual property rights without our express written consent or attribution to www.citylawyermag.com. However, you are permitted to print or save to your individual PC, tablet or storage extracts from this Website for your own personal non-commercial use.

  • EDITOR'S CHOICE
  • Feb 20, 2022
  • 0
  • Comments Off on EFCC PROBES NBA LAGOS BRANCH, GRILLS CHAIR, CONTRACTOR

EFCC PROBES NBA LAGOS BRANCH, GRILLS CHAIR, CONTRACTOR

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has launched a massive probe into the activities of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Lagos Branch, CITY LAWYER can exclusively report.

A source who is familiar with the unprecedented probe of Nigeria’s “Premier Bar” told CITY LAWYER that the focus of the extensive investigation is on the contracts and financial dealings of the immediate past branch administration.

Impeccable sources told CITY LAWYER that the current Branch Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer have been grilled by the anti-graft agency “following an anonymous petition against the immediate past administration of the branch.” The source said that the officers were interrogated by EFCC operatives and told to provide documentation on the transactions on which the anti-graft agency is beaming its searchlight.

A source also told CITY LAWYER that Fresible Company Limited, the branch ICT service provider has also been interrogated by EFCC operatives.

The source said that the anti-graft agency is putting a searchlight especially on contracts for the branch Bar Centre project as well as payments for website development, branch bus purchase and hybrid monthly meetings among others.

According to an Executive Committee member of the immediate past administration, “No expense was approved by the Executive Committee. The procurement process was non-existent, as there was hardly any bidding for the contracts. There were no memos for expenditures. There were issues of conflict of interest in some of the contracts. There were no checks and balances. Can you imagine that N150 million was paid for the Bar Centre project without any EXCO meeting held to discuss the contract and on the ground only that it was approved by the Building Committee. Barely two weeks to the end of our tenure, another N50 million was paid on the excuse that the ‘payment is due.’ The Branch domain name renewal was effected every 6 months instead of the standard one-year renewal period. A last-minute hefty N150,000 was paid for HD presentation on the Bar Centre project.”

Speaking on the branch accounts for the year-ended May 31, 2021, its auditors, Messrs Olu Aladejebi & Co. (Chartered Accountants) wrote: “We observed that some memos that was (sic) raised/written were having the authorized persons’ on them but were not signed especially the ones for the (Bar Centre) construction.”

It also stated that “At the close of business as at May 31st 2021, the branch’s cash and cash equivalent stood at ₦220,420,065. This shows a decrease of ₦145,599,135 from last year’s figure, which is a 40% decrease over last year’s result of ₦366,019,200. This is as a result of on going construction work on Bar Centre building at Lekki.”

But another ranking Executive Committee member in the immediate past administration dismissed the probe as futile, saying that nothing would come out of it. He told CITY LAWYER that there were “no suspicious financial dealings” during their tenure, adding that payments on the Bar Centre were approved by the Building Committee chaired by Dr. Wale Babalakin SAN. He argued that it was not the role of the Executive Committee to oversight standing committees, adding that such committees had their terms of reference approved by the general meeting and also made periodic reports to the general meeting.

He dismissed alleged financial infractions relating to the website development and virtual meetings, stating that such matters were handled by the ICT Committee. He noted that all financial queries raised by members at general meetings were satisfactorily resolved, adding that while the new branch bus had “fixing” challenges, a committee was set up to resolve the debacle.

On the departure of then Legal Adviser, Mr. Harry Ukaejiofor from the Executive Committee WhatsApp platform, he argued that it was based on an attempt to “overreach himself” than a principled and persistent disagreement over the financial dealings and procedural safeguards.

While the probe is being discussed in hushed tones among a few of the branch members who have become aware of the petition, the immediate past Branch Chairman, Mr. Yemi Akangbe is yet to speak on the matter.

NBA LAGOS AGM ANNUAL REPORT

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THE USORO LEGACY: RESOLVING LAWYERS’ DATABASE CONUNDRUM

BY AKOREDE HABEEB LAWAL

In this article, Nigerian Bar Association Assistant Publicity Secretary, AKOREDE HABEEB LAWAL traces the age-old challenge of developing a reliable database of lawyers in Nigeria, saying that the Paul Usoro Administration has admirably resolved the conundrum

It is 2020, another bar election year. At about this time in 2018, there was a unique request by members of the Bar. Contestants to various offices promised heaven and earth on how they intended to provide the unique request. For one unusual and ‘un-Nigerian’ reason, that request is not being made this year. Why? It has been done. The Paul Usoro administration has done it. Members can now pay their Bar Practising Fees (BPF) in the comfort of their homes using the NBA Portal. In fact, 30% of members who paid their BPF in 2020 did through the NBA website.

The NBA website has various unique features. At first glance, it welcomes you with a beautiful feel and an easy to navigate tool. The revamped NBA website compares favourably in content, context and connectivity with the best web portals around. It is a gateway to NBA activities and it is fast becoming a one-stop shop for Bar services.

Speaking of Bar services, aside the already utilized option of payment of BPF and download of the BPF receipts, the NBA website avails members their personalized membership portals. The process for the stamp and seal application will soon migrate online and the insurance certificate of all members will also be duly uploaded for downloads. In the coming days, member will be able to apply for letter of good standing and check his/her ICLE points on the exclusive membership portal, while everyone including non-lawyers may also use the “find a lawyer” feature to confirm the authenticity of anyone who claims to be a lawyer.

Some of the ills of the previous website were that it could not welcome huge traffic and it was not secured to host payment gateways. Therefore, the NBA had to build (of course with millions of Naira) a special purpose website every year for its annual general conference. Good news is that we are done with that awkward situation. Registration has now commenced for the 2020 Annual General Conference and everything about the conference is being done on our revamped NBA website.

A further vote of confidence was given to the NBA website by the decision of the Electoral Committee of the NBA (ECNBA) to host the 2020 national officers election on the website. When this is done, it will arguably mark the first time since the introduction of electronic voting that Bar balloting is not hosted on a foreign platform.

A website is a house of data and there is no data in this context as important as the data of lawyers. In September 2018, at our first national officers meeting, the NBA President was clear that one of the things his administration would strive to achieve is the development of an up-to-date, clean and reliable database of all lawyers who have been enrolled at the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Mr. Paul Usoro, SAN hardly spares any opportunity to reiterate the fact that “without a reliable database that could be used for research purposes, proper planning and forecasting by the NBA is impossible.”

It stands to reason that in order to address an issue as sensitive and important as welfare of young lawyers, we must be able to ascertain in actual terms the number of young lawyers there really are. We are on track with this data classification and the one year free subscription of LawPavilion electronic legal resources for all young lawyers who had paid their BPF before 31st of March, 2020 was our first attempt to rely on this data gathering effort. Similar data classification has to be developed for female lawyers, colleagues with disabilities, our aged members and other
classes of members of the NBA.

“By the way, it is good to answer the question of cost. The Paul Usoro administration paid no dime for the new NBA website. We knew what we wanted in a website and we got a sponsor to pay for it.”

In our pursuit of this ‘clean and reliable’ data ideal, the administration embarked on a verification exercise. Verification entails from the front end the inputting of personal data by a member and most importantly the upload of call to bar certificate. At the backend, the uploaded bar certificate will be crosschecked with the details of the member on the roll of legal practitioners before the approval of the application for verification.

The verification process in the past attracted a N2000 processing fee, knowing the overall importance of this exercise, the NBA President, Paul Usoro, SAN directed that the process must and should be free of any charge. With this exercise, a number of misspelt names in the database have been corrected, change of maiden names by female lawyers are being effected, email addresses and phone numbers of thousand of members are now updated, many lawyers now know their enrolment numbers and gradually, we are closer than ever to our aim of delivering a clean and reliable database.

If we ever needed a reminder of the significance of a clean database, the appearance of “Opening Balance” on the list of voters sent by Branches and published by the ECNBA was a ready one. Aside the imaginary “Opening Balance”, there are real charlatans who are ‘well balanced’ in legal practice – taking up the space in our little legal market – that we must wield out. Therefore, verification becomes non-negotiable. It is because of verification that “Opening Balance” and non-lawyers with regular names will be unable to access the NBA Membership portal to vote or illegally enjoy other NBA online services. While the verification agenda was not primarily built for the 2020 national officers’ election, the accreditation purpose it now serves is indeed laudable.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our world and opened the vista of virtual interactions. Bar services and engagement within the NBA will have to move online and these have to be fast, quick, secured and effective. The Paul Usoro administration commenced the journey towards revamping the NBA website to provide all these services long before the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a huge foundational task that we have more than completed and it behoves on succeeding administrations to build on this cornerstone.

By the way, it is good to answer the question of cost. The Paul Usoro administration paid no dime for the new NBA website. We knew what we wanted in a website and we got a sponsor to pay for it. Thank you!

Copyright 2020 CITY LAWYER. Please send emails to citylawyermag@gmail.com. Join us on Facebook at https://web.facebook.com/City-Lawyer-Magazine-434937936684320 and on TWITTER at https://twitter.com/CityLawyerMag All materials available on this Website are protected by copyright, trade mark and other proprietary and intellectual property laws. You may not use any of our intellectual property rights without our express written consent or attribution to www.citylawyermag.com. However, you are permitted to print or save to your individual PC, tablet or storage extracts from this Website for your own personal non-commercial use.

NBA DATABASE: OLANIPEKUN, NGIGE, FALANA IN ‘OBOLLO-AFOR’ BRANCH

* Mixed reactions, as errors mar project
* ‘We are in the dark on website contract,’ say EXCO Members

There is palpable anxiety over the current state of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) database as uploaded on the NBA website. While some members have their data correctly inputted, prominent Bar Leaders such as former NBA President, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN); former NBA presidential candidate and Chairman of the Council of Legal Education (CLE), Chief Emeka Ngige (SAN) and Mrs. Funmi Falana, wife of fiery human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN) are among those whose data have errors. The trio are listed as members of NBA Obollo-Afor Branch. Continue Reading