RE: Setting The Records Straight: 3rd Vice President Reacts To NBA President Allegations, Calls For Independent Audit (PART 2)
Let me continue to discuss the other complaints of the 3rd Vice President.
4. The President’s refusal to include her in any Committee.
Does the President owe any duty or responsibility to appoint the 3rd Vice President to any Committee? Is it her right to be appointed into any Committee of the Association? I answer in the negative.
The Committee and body that the 3rd Vice President under the NBA Constitution is a member are the National Executive Committee and the National Executive Council. They are statutory and not by appointment. Apart from these two and the supervision of Branches assigned to her,the 3rd Vice President has no other responsibility or duty to perform under the NBA Constitution. Unless the President or the National Executive Council assign any duty to her, the 3rd Vice President is merely a spare tyre of fourth degree in the NBA Presidency. It is only when the President,1st Vice President and the 2nd Vice President are not around that the 3rd Vice President shall step into the big shoes of the President of the Association as of right.
So it is established that appointment to Committees is not a right of the 3rd Vice President that is capable of being infringed or usurped by the President.
Apart from this, the NBA Constitution made the President and National Secretary members in most of, if not all Committees of the Association. The 3rd Vice President should be content with this arrangement. Attempting to make the President appoint or assign duties to her under duress is not the best strategy.
It is natural for the President to refuse to exercise his discretion in her favor since she holds him in derision, considers him an enemy and equate herself as equal to the President from the inception of this administration. I sincerely believe that the 3rd Vice President will do the same if she is the President.
Though the other Officials of the Association were elected alongside the President,the framers of the NBA Constitution in their wisdom(which was accepted by the members) assigned each Official his/ her specific duties. It is not a Constitutional right of the 3rd Vice President and other Officers to insist that the President must carry them along in the performance of his specific assigned duties. This should be differentiated with the business of the National Executive Committee as enshrined in the Constitution.
5. Failure to appoint her as a member of the Conference Planning Committee.
The assertion that it was only the President that prepared the 2023 Annual General Conference is an insult to the Chairman, Alternate Chairman and eminent members of that Committee who toiled day and night for months to plan the Annual General Conference. It portrayed them as dummies.
The 3rd Vice-president and by extension other members(except the President and the Secretary) of the National Executive Committee have no statutory role to play in the planning and execution of the Annual General Conference. The power of appointing members and determination of the business of the Annual General Conference lies with the National Executive Council and the President in accordance with Section 13(1) (2) of the NBA Constitution. The Conference Planning Committee does not report to the National Executive Committee. They report and are answerable to the National Executive Council.
How then can the President deprive the 3rd Vice President of a non-existent right? The 3rd Vice President needs to learn the benefit of humility. She should know her place in the Association and stay there.
6. The demand to share the #40,000,000.00 donated to the Association by members of the National Executive Committee.
The President informed the Annual General Meeting that the problem he has with some members of the National Executive Committee was his refusal to share a fourty thousand naira donation to the Association with and among the Officers.
The 3rd Vice President was silent on this in her rebuttal. Her only answer was to put the President to the strictest proof. ‘Strictest proof thereof’ is the language of pleading. It is a general traverse. I expected the 3rd Vice President to give further answers in order to show that the President lied. I was disappointed and taken aback when the 3rd Vice President diverted attention from this grievous issue raised by the President. The story about when they were informed of the donation and the currency of the donation was not an answer to this specific fact. The failure of the 3rd Vice President in providing any further particular on this is an admission of what the President said.
The truth that there was such a meeting where this demand was made has been collaborated by the press release of the National Public Secretary of the Association. In that release he stated as follows;
“…..I only got wind of facts relating to the sharing of the fifty million naira (#50,000,000.00) donation when the President mentioned upon his return to the meeting (and I rejoined the meeting virtually) that he would not be sharing the fifty million naira (#50,000,000.00) with and amongst National Officers”.
Some other Officers of the Association have issued press statements to explain that they were not part of the Officers that reached the decision to make the demand for the sharing of the money but the 3rd Vice President said such did not happen.
The implication is that the 3rd Vice President lied and not the President. It means that she was among the Officers that attempted to illegally appropriate the Association’s fund for their personal use. What an Officer!
7. Demand for the refund of the sum of two million,two hundred naira expenses by the 3rd Vice President.
The 3rd Vice President denied this in general terms. Her further answer to this is that the money is not up to half of the amount the President mentioned. She was mum on the exact amount. The President said she incurred that expense by staying two weeks in a hotel at Abuja. The Vice President denied this clumsily and cleverly diverted attention to the expenses she incurred in her trip to Ekiti,Ondo and Osun. These States share common boundaries. Explanation of whether she stayed two weeks in a hotel at Abuja just to attend the President’s birthday and how much bill was incurred remained unanswered in specific terms.
Assuming (but without conceding) that the amount spent in her visit to Ekiti, Ondo and Osun for four days is not up to half of the amount mentioned by the President. Half of that amount is one million one hundred thousand naira. Since the 3rd Vice President did not state the exact amount involved let me further guess that it is in the neighborhood of one million naira.So for four days(according to her) trip to neighbouring States that are situated very close to her State of residence Lagos,the 3rd Vice President incurred this huge amount of money which she expected the President to reimburse with the Association’s fund. This is pathetic and most reprehensible. It showed that she came to plunder and not to build. It further established the fact that her problem with the President is his stone wall refusal to allow her to recklessly plunder our money.
8. That the President secretly sent some officers to India.
The 3rd Vice President alleged that the President secretly sent some Officers to India. Was this done in secret? I can conveniently refute this allegation. I attended the National Executive Council Meeting of the Association where the President gave the report of the trip to NEC. The 3rd Vice President was present at the meeting.
The motive of the 3rd Vice President and her collaborators in raising the alarming false allegations against the President at the Annual General Meeting of the Association and in her press statement was to cause the Members of the Association to pass a vote of no confidence on the President which could have led to the impeachment of the President. It was a failed coup d’etat against the Office of the President of the Nigerian Bar Association. An unsuccessful coup d’etat is always followed by adverse consequences.
In all, the conduct of the 3rd Vice President is in contravention of the provisions of Section 20 of the 2015 Constitution (as amended)of the Nigerian Bar Association. The said Section state as follows;
“1. A National Officer may be removed from office where he/she,
a. commits fraud or becomes bankrupt or insolvent.
b. accepts appointment from any Government except as a member of an adhoc Committee or Panel.
c. Is convicted of any offence by a competent Court.
d. Breaches any provision of the code of conduct approved by the National Executive Council.
e. Publicly misconduct himself/herself owing to intoxication by alcohol,drug or other intoxicants or stimulants,or any bestial acts.
f. Is involved in an act or behavior that brings or is likely to bring the Association into disrepute
g. Is found culpable for acts of disobedience to the Association,the President or any of it’s organs,or professional misconduct.
Provided that such Officer may only be removed from office by 2/3 majority of the National Executive Council and after such Officer shall have been given an opportunity to defend himself/herself”.
The ingredients of the contravention of paragraphs of Section 20 (1) (d) (f) (g) of the NBA Constitution by the 3rd Vice President are as follows;
a. The 3rd Vice President disrupted the Annual General Meeting of the Association by introducing matters not approved by the National Executive Council as one of the agendas of the meeting. Her duty at the meeting was to give a report of her supervisory activities of Branches assigned to her as enshrined in Section 9(d)(ii) of the NBA Constitution and no more. Turning the opportunity as a forum to attack the President is assuming the power she did not have.
The President did not recognize her to speak on that topic as provided by Paragraph 6 of the First Schedule to the NBA Constitution as follows;
“No member shall speak on any topic until recognized to do so by the President or the Presiding Officer as the case may be”
She should have waited for the discussion of any other business(AOB) in the Agenda of the meeting and upon recognition by the President introduce other matters she deemed of interest to the Association.
b. The use by the 3rd Vice President of derogatory words to describe members of the National Executive Council,the President and her fellow Officers in the press statement she released to the whole world caused unprecedented harm to the reputation of the Association. It brought disrepute to the Association.
c. Attempt by her and other conspirators to overthrow and take over the office of the President of the NBA by illegal and deceptive means when she falsely accused the President of the usurpation of her non existent duties and infraction of the NBA Constitution at the Annual General Conference of the Association on the 31st August 2023.
d. The 3rd Vice President disobeyed the lawful directive of the President and the resolution of the National Executive Council of the Association by continuing to demand the payment with the NBA fund expenses she allegedly incurred in self imposed duties and affairs not connected to the Association.
e. Attempt by the 3rd Vice President and some other officials to coerce the President to share the Association’s forty million naira.
In the absence of an adequate written apology to the President,the National Executive Council,her fellow Officers and the Association by the 3rd Vice President,I will urge the National Executive Council to activate the provision of Section 20 of the NBA Constitution against her.
Let me digress a bit before concluding. We will soon start the process of the NBA election. I urge would-be aspirants to carefully study the NBA Constitution in order to know the duties of the office they are aspiring to. The era of seeing the office of the Association as an opportunity for oversea travel, to amass wealth or other jamboree with the Association’s fund is now history.
Concluded.
Godwin Madubuko Esq. is a Private Legal Practitioner
