The President-elect of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN), has said that the association will soon take a position on the ongoing controversy over the zoning of the nation’s president for the 2011 election.

Daudu spoke on Sunday during an interview with journalists at his residence shortly after attending a thanksgiving service at the Holy Family Catholic Church, Barnawa, Kaduna.

He, however, argued that good governance and merit should be the factors that should be considered in selecting the best candidate for the presidency next year.

The president-elect said that although the zoning arrangement had helped in stabilising the Bar, it could not be strictly applied in the case of an entity as large as the Nigerian nation.

According to him, the prevailing circumstances would dictate the best measures to take in a particular situation.

Stressing that the views he had expressed on the zoning principle were personal, he said that at the appropriate time the NBA would take a definite stand on the matter.

The NBA president-elect said, “My views about zoning are entirely personal, it has nothing to do with what the NBA will decide on. I am thus speaking for myself.

“I prefer to see a situation whereby there is good governance and whereby there is merit in deciding who the best candidate is. Now for a polity as large as Nigeria, you cannot have hard and fast rules.

“The circumstances will dictate what the best measure to take is. It is the same even with the NBA. We have not had any situation as to warrant us to alter our zoning system, but we are human and perhaps, should there be a situation where we need to re-examine it, we would re-examine it. Even in the NBA, people are asking for inclusion.”