The Task Before The New Nba Exco To Be Led By Mazi Afam Josiah Osigwe SAN

The Task Before The New NBA Exco To Be Led By Mazi Afam Josiah Osigwe SAN.
By: Jibrin Samuel Okutepa, SAN

This year, the 2024 elections to the various offices at the National level of NBA were concluded by 11: 59 PM yesterday, the 20th July 2024. The elections, in my view, were free and fair and did not suffer the kind of hitches and glitches we suffered in 2020 when some lawyers had difficulties casting their votes for candidates of their choices.

Those stories are still fresh in our memories of how cloned email addresses were used to the disadvantages of lawyers. That is history now. This year elections were well planned and organised, and I must say again that NBA did well this time. 

From the results, Mazi Afam Josiah Osigwe SAN has been elected and declared the President of NBA for 2024-2026. Congratulations to Mazi Afam Josiah Osigwe and his EXCO members. In August 2024, the baton of leadership will be handed over to this brand new EXCO. The tasks ahead are daunting and challenging. I listened to the acceptance speech of Mr. President Elect of NBA. It is reassuring.

But let me say straight away to Mazi Afam Josiah Osigwe SAN that time has come for the bar to return to its core values.The value of objectivity and pursuit of noble goals for the good of all Nigerians. The value of placing the overall interests of the legal profession and its  members over and above all other considerations. The bar must bark and bite. The bar must sign praises where it needs to and come hard on all those who pollute the stream of justice when the need arises.  The bar must show light in darkness.

The manner in which some lawyers  campaign for and against few lawyers running for the various offices of the association which campaigns were not based on the purity and capacities but rather based on revenge and selfish interest in the elections of the National Officers of NBA is of serious concerns to me and many right thinking members of the profession. 

Many have axe to grind, and so the choices they make or ask others to make are really not rooted in objectivity and overall interest of capacity to lead the bar right. This has polarised the once noble and great association, NBA.In those days, NBA was an association no boy dared to look down on. When NBA spoke, the government listened then.The association was feared by all and sundry, and the leaders and elders of the bar were not leading or giving directions on the basis of primordial partisan selfish interests. 

Those of us who were younger elements then showed absolute obedience and respect for the elders. The elders in the North made consultations with the ones in the South East and South West and vis-versa. These elders were honest and were not taking decisions on the basis of what  they wanted to gain or that would benefit them, but the legal profession. 

Today, things have gone bad. There is no respect for the elders anymore except in a few cases. The respect within us as lawyers is gone and almost irretrievably. These have badly injured the intergrity and nobility of the bar, and by direct extensions, the bench. 

As of today, some judex see lawyers as slaves of the bench, and these judex do whatever they like, and they get away with it. There are a lot of works to be done by the incoming EXCO. The lost glory of the bar must be restored. The bar must be vocal and ensure that recruitment processes to the bench and all other positions the bar has the right to nominate lawyers must be done on the basis of competence, capacity, and integrity. 

NBA must avoid creating divisive opportunities within its ranks and files. From the results, it is apparent that 20, 016 legal practitioners did not vote for Mazi Afam Osigwe SAN. They voted for the two other eminent contestants. Those lawyers meant well for the bar. They must be carried along. No leadership succeeds with bitterness to revenge. Mazi must carry all along. Congratulations to the new EXCO of NBA to be led by Mazi Afam Josiah Osigwe SAN

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