President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Akpata has finally aired his views on the drama between the association and its suspended General Secretary, Joyce Oduah.
Akpata who was a guest on The Morning Show of Arise TV station on Tuesday, was confronted with a statement by law teacher, Sylvester Udemezue as follows: “NBA President, when you assumed office in August 2020, you said in your inaugural speech, “The Bar that I want to lead henceforth, is one that is united on all fronts and recognizes that our diversity, is perhaps our greatest strength. We desperately need to unite and speak with one firm voice. Doing otherwise will be a great disservice to our vision of building a stronger and formidable Bar”.
Udemezue then asked: “learned Benchers, Professors, Silks, colleagues, how market? Has Olumide Akpata’s leadership united or disunited the Bar? Is it not messy everywhere within the Bar?”.
Akpata was further informed of two write-ups by Okutepa SAN and Murtala Abdulrasheed SAN respectively, alleging that the NBA under his watch has not been fair to Joyce Oduah, the NBA Secretary General who is now suspended. “You have been accused of ignoring the fact that there is a court process in place and going ahead, despite the fact that you were in court with your counsel when the issue of Joyce Oduah vs Incorporated Trustees of the NBA, came up in Abuja. It is said that you violated the rule of law when the NBA under your watch is supposed to defend the rule of law. Are you guilty as charged?
Responding to the questions, Akpata said : “I’m definitely not guilty. I am not guilty, the NBA NEC is not guilty in my own assessment, but of course you know I cannot be a judge in my own cause so I will simply just say that I plead not guilty. I do not find myself not guilty, I leave that to the court of public opinion”.
“But on a united bar, you know, we have done our best, even before we get to the issue of Joyce Oduah, we have done our best in the last couple of years to ensure that we bring the Bar together.”
He continued: “Before I came into office; before my election or during my election, quite a number of persons have thrown a wedge in the Bar…between the inner and the outer Bar as you know, those who are between the Senior Advocates and those of us who are not senior advocates, quite a number of persons tried very hard to throw a wedge between those two categories in the Bar”.
“The last 2 years I have tried very hard to ensure, with my colleagues working with me, that we bring back that unity. I have worked very closely with many many senior advocates; on our National Executive Council there are 40 seats reserved for the senior advocates, at least 60 percent maybe 50 percent of my committees are chaired by senior advocates. I have the best hands working with me to ensure that the Bar progresses rapidly.
Indeed Dr Tunde Ajibade SAN, with whom I contested for the office of president, accepted to chair the NBA judiciary committee and together we have worked so hard to ensure that the NBA intervenes positively in the judiciary space.
I can go on and on about the efforts that we have made to ensure that the division which was created by quite a few who do not really mean well for this association again out of selfish interest. We have tried very hard to ensure that we bridge that divide and we work together. Which is why in my speech yesterday I asked our members to stop for a second and reflect as to where we are as an association and see how far we have come and indeed what we find is that the Bar is doing much better than before I came into office and that is as a result of the effort that we have all put in to ensure that we are in a much better place”.
Speaking directly to the issues of Mrs Oduah, Akpata said: “The association like many others operates by rules. We are a rules based profession, and association. Joyce Oduah was elected as General Secretary and she has her responsibilities as prescribed by the constitution of the NBA and she took steps that were considered to be inimical, wrong as far as her responsibilities in the constitution go.
Stating that the matter is subjudice and therefore he could not really speak to the issues, he said the NBA did not ignore the pendency of the matter in court. “We did not. You can’t injunct an act that has already been done. Oduah was validly suspended by national officers of this association and indeed she went to the Federal High Court. She sought for an interim injunction and that was refused and what happened at the NEC meeting on Sunday was that her suspension which was already in effect was ratified by the NEC because without that ratification, even that meeting itself wont have been held and you know nature abhors a vacuum and there’s no way we could have proceeded without ratifying the act that had already been done”.
“When we talk about paying heed to the pendency of the court action, it is to ensure that you do not tie the hands of the court and the court in its final determination of the matter is not rendered ineffective. What the NBA did was to ratify it, so we could proceed”.
“She remains suspended, the suspension is being challenged in court, and the court will decide one way or the other. What the NEC did was to ratify it so that we could proceed”.
“Indeed at that meeting there was a petition for the outright removal of Joyce Oduah at that NEC meeting, but in the best tradition of the legal profession, we as a body declined to look at that petition precisely because there is a matter in court at the moment and we could not take any steps that would render that matter useless. We have done nothing wrong in our estimation,we have proceeded, the association cannot grind to a halt. It is our responsibility to ensure that we move on within the boundaries of the law and that is what we have done. I assure you that the NBA will continue to uphold the rule of law as has always been our mandate” he said.
