THE Nigerian Bar Association Rejects Single Nominee Slot For National Confab Friday, 31 January 2014 Written by Lemmy Ughegbe, Abuja THE Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Friday in Abuja declined the single delegate slot allocated to it by the Federal Government to participate in the national conference. NBA’s President, Okey Wali (SAN) who made this disclosure via a protest letter to Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, described the single slot accorded the association as “disappointing”. Wali questioned the rationale for the single slot in the face of multiple slots allocated to other groups. The letter reads in part: “The Nigerian Bar Association received with utmost disappointment, the statement credited to you on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria, requesting the Nigerian Bar Association to nominate one delegate to the upcoming National Conference. “We write to place on record our dissatisfaction with the list of conference delegates, particularly when put against representations from some other organizations and bodies”. He argued that since numerous legal issues would be addressed at the National Conference, “it is only fitting and proper for the umbrella association of all lawyers in Nigeria, the Nigerian Bar Association, to have more than one delegate at the National Conference”. According to him, national conference is an area where lawyers possess enormous expertise and will definitely add a lot of value to the process. He said: “We do not want to think that our expertise is neither appreciated nor welcome. This is not glory seeking, this is about adding value to the process, because the good of this country, is the good of the Bar and so we are determined to give whatever is needed to make our country great. “We do not believe that the single slot given to the Nigerian Bar Association will have enough impact, and so, we request that you, please, reconsider the one slot offer to the Nigerian Bar Association, as we regrettably will be unable to accept that offer. “We hold it in your favour, that this may very well be an oversight, and that the Federal government will have no difficulty in revisiting the issue.” Wali said NBA is a membership-based professional and legal organization of all lawyers in Nigeria with 104 branches across the 36 states and Abuja, organized into various practice sections, fora, institutes and committees. The association, he said, speaks for the legal profession, that is, the Bar and Bench, adding that over the years, a national conference had been one of the imperatives that defined the priorities of the association. “In fact, it was a past President of the Nigerian Bar Association, the late Alao Aka-Bashorun, that first called for a National Conference and since then, the Nigerian Bar Association has been in the forefront of the National Conference discourse”. He said that as a demonstration of the association’s seriousness and commitment to a successful national conference, it had on January 7, 2014 set up the Nigerian Bar Association National conference Committee under the Chairmanship of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, with a Senior Advocate of Nigeria as the Secretary (the only committee or forum or section of the Nigerian Bar Association with a Senior Advocate of Nigeria as secretary).
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 02:16:37 +0000
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