ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE NIGERIAN BAR ASSOCIATION JOSEPH BODUNRIN DAUDU SAN TO THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING OF 9^th JUNE 2011 AT THE  INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE ABUJA

PROTOCOL

Honourable Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambawal, Hon. Bencher, Distinguished Past Presidents, Members of NEC, Gentlemen and Ladies of the Media, Ladies and Gentlemen.

INTRODUCTION

I welcome you to Abuja the capital city of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This NEC meeting is taking place in a location i.e. the International Conference Centre that is familiar to all of us. We held our 2008 Annual General Conference at this venue. It is necessary to state that Abuja was hastily conscripted to host this meeting. The short notice given to the Branch was a s a result of the logistical nightmare preparing for the conference posed for our then host Katsina and ourselves in the build-up and indeed aftermath of the April General election. The Branch Chairman Afam Osigwe esqr has done excellently well by way of his leadership qualities to the organisation of this meeting. I thank the entire members of the Abuja branch, the branch executives and last but not the least, senior members of the Bar, who have financially given tremendous support and goodwill to the success of this NEC meeting. As I can attest to, Abuja is a beautiful city with all the trappings of relaxation. Thus you are encouraged to treat the next couple of days as a prelude to the impending vacation and enjoy yourselves. There is however a caveat; the city is very expensive and the bar has no facility for those who may be left stranded after the dissipation of funds (as some of my friends did at the Calabar AGM in 2001) on matters ancillary to leisure. I also use this opportunity to welcome in our midst, the Honourable, the Chief Judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory Hon. Justice Lawal Gumi, the President Customary Court of Appeal of the Federal Capital Territory, Hon. Justice Moses Bello, the President National Industrial Court, Hon Justice B.A. Adejumo and superior court judges present. I thank you all for finding time to attend. For members this promises to be an eventful NEC meeting. I wish fruitful deliberations.

HISTORICAL RELEVANCE OF NIGERIAN BAR ASSOCIATION TO NATIONAL ISSUES

It is usual in my address to this august body to highlight one aspect or the other of the role of the Nigerian Bar Association with the aim that we remained focussed on the ideals of our founding fathers whilst at the same time adapting to the demands of change and modern circumstances. From time immemorial, the history and progress of Nigeria and the Bar have been inextricably linked. Members of the Nigerian Bar Association were in the vanguard of the struggle for independence of our great country. During the unavoidable military interregnum which came with culture of totalitarianism and absence of constitutionalism, the Bar was in the forefront of the very perilous battle against the culture of undemocratic governance, unbridled and unrepentant regime of ouster clauses in legislation, impunity, disobedience of court orders, etc. The battle for constitutional democracy against the forces that represented this negative and indeed unfashionable form of governance i.e. Military Government was not without its cost to the Bar Association. Many of our members were during this interregnum hounded unceremoniously to prison and other forms of detention (which led to their early demise), many had their source of livelihood i.e. legal practice truncated, many were subjected to indescribable indignities and humiliation. Notwithstanding, the Bar and Nigeria rode this storm and survived the ill-wind by safely along with other nationalists navigating the nation through these rough uncharted waters. In 1999, we thought that all these efforts had landed us in the harbour of relatively safe waters. But we were mistaken; those that that came to power under what appeared to be a civilian democratic government carried with them into governance an unwelcome baggage of military hangover. The culture of impunity continued, court orders were recklessly disobeyed, lip service was paid to that cankerworm called corruption, transition from one government to itself was characterised by elections that were brazenly rigged, extra-judicial killings became the order of the day, the penetration of the judiciary by the forces of corruption assumed an alarming dimension, politicians now saw and regrettably some still see governance as a cash cow to be milked mercilessly as if there was no tomorrow. Nationwide, i.e. in all spheres of our socio-political and economic life corruption assumed an alarming dimension. No infrastructural project saw the light of day without being compromised by the forces of corruption. Indeed the nation appeared headed for a fall from a very high cliff. The Bar and other nationalists remained steadfast speaking out at great risk to limb and livelihood against these undemocratic forces. Even veritable democratic institutions like the legislature were not free from these accusations. There has been a great neglect of the performance of legislative duties at the expense of self gratifying measures such as the wanton increase in salaries and emoluments out of proportion with the economic realities of the people that they claim to represent. In all these, the Bar has remained steadfast in its stiff and uncompromising opposition to undemocratic forces. I pay my respect to our Past Presidents, (Alao Aka-Bashorun, T.J O Okpoko SAN, O.C.J. Okocha SAN Wole Olanipekun SAN, Lanke Odogiyon, Olisa Agbakoba SAN and my illustrious predecessor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu SAN and the entire Bar that supported them. Together we have steadfastly maintained the culture of zero-tolerance for this kind of culture. With humility, we are privileged to lead the Bar today will never depart from this approach. While we recognise that strategy and approach may be different and indeed vary from one leader to the other, the objective continues to remain the same. It is in a nutshell, to liberate the people of Nigeria, whose land (literally flowing with milk and honey) has been endowed by the Good Lord with indescribable wealth from the stranglehold and shackles of bad leadership, impunity, corruption, self aggrandisement, abuse of the Rule of law, declining judiciary, abuse of human rights and bad governance. That is our mandate and with God on our side we will not disappoint or the let the Bar and Nigeria down.

THE CONSULTATIVE MEETING WITH THE NBA BY PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN

On Thursday the 3^rd of June, 2011, the Nigerian Bar Association was invited to the Villa i.e. State house for a consultative meeting with the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Dr. Goodluck Jonathan GCFR. It was a unique experience. The President led a team of the Vice President, Secretary to the Government of the Federation Anyim Pius Anyim esqr, Chief of Staff, Solicitor-General of the Federation and at least 6 senior high ranking Government officials. On our team was my humble self, President of the NBA, Past President Prince Lanke Odogiyon, Augustine Alegeh SAN, your General Secretary Olumuyiwa Akinboro esqr and the Director of Administration Osita Okoro esqr. The President welcomed the Bar. He recognised our association as a veritable institution in the vanguard of due process and constitutional democracy. He explained the process of consultation as not only with the Bar but with other veritable stakeholders such as the Nigerian Society of Economists with which he had a similar meeting the day before he met us. The President made to the Bar an institutional offer of partnership with the Bar to move our country Nigeria to the next level. With unprecedented humility, he demanded from the Bar at all time’s good advice on legal and other related matters. He made, conferred on the Bar (not appointed) the status of Honorary legal Adviser. Secondly, President Jonathan GCFR in the pursuit of partnership with the Bar invited us to examine the present state of our electoral laws and culture and come up with a draft Electoral Act for the 2015 election. To the President’s credit, he abhorred a situation where preparations for election will commence late in the day. He expressed a desire to have sent the appropriate draft legislation fashioned by this NBA Committee to the National Assembly within 12 months. Finally, President Jonathan encouraged the Bar to play a key role in the maintenance of the dignity of the judiciary.

Frankly, I did not see anything injurious, deleterious or offensive to the principles upon which the Bar prides itself as described above. I therefore accepted the President’s offer and promised to implement his request. I shall deal with them in seriatim.

THE LEGAL ADVISER ISSUE

There appears to be much misinformation on this issue. May I say straightaway that your President was not appointed as an Adviser to Government. Section 151 and 152 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) prescribes the mode of appointment of Presidential Advisers.

(a) Their appointment is by and at the pleasure of the President.

(b) Their remunerations and allowances shall be as prescribed by Law or by resolution of the National Assembly.

(c)  The appointee must before he begins to function in his advisory office until he has declared his assets and liabilities as constitutionally prescribed and has subsequently taken and subscribed to the oath of office as constitutionally prescribed.

The offer by the President does not include complying with the above conditions. It was therefore an honour done to the Bar, an institutional recognition, which will survive the present incumbent of the President of the Nigerian Bar Association. I recommend to NEC that it ratifies all actions in this regard.

ELECTORAL LAWS (NBA) REFORM PANEL

As disclosed above, the fall-out from the 2011 general election, though an improvement on the 2007 election, cannot be described as being in consonance with International best practices and standards. I have read all the reports from the key observers and monitoring groups including the NDI coalition from which the NBA operated. It is only fair to put the success rate of the election at 65%. With great humility and profound respect; that is not good enough. Although there was a noticeable reduction in deviant electoral conduct such as ballot box snatching, thuggery, etc. However there was a noticeable unprecedented increase in pre and post electoral violence exposing the weaknesses in our security apparatus and our resolve and ability to bring such persons to justice through prosecution in our criminal courts. Indeed, without any prompting we offered INEC services of legal practitioners from the Bar to assist in the prosecution of the large number of persons suspected to have committed electoral offences. We offered to do this for very minimal fee to our client but regrettably INEC has only paid lip service to the idea of bringing the class of persons to book. This lapse is one of the obvious weaknesses of the electoral body. Perhaps had INEC acted with resolve and urgency in the prosecution of even the pre –election offenders, those who unleashed mayhem during the post-election violence orchestrated as a result of the failure of the CPC to win the Presidential election would have had a rethink. In this light and by way of digression I place on record the electoral behaviour of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). There was no post election violence or mischief in the areas in which it made electoral gains but lost the Presidency and it has steadfastly only criticized Government and its policies constructively and not through violence. I hope other parties emulate such commendable political culture. We cannot and should not collapse the system merely because a political party does not have its way in an election. Human lives, which unfortunately, were lost in their thousands in this politically motivated crisis is very sacrosanct. We pay respect to the 10 NYSC youth corps members who lost their lives consequent upon this violence in Bauchi State. They have paid the supreme sacrifice for their nation. We wait to see what the nation does to immortalise their names and memory. [One minute silence]

This panel therefore must examine comprehensively every lacuna in the present or existing Electoral laws. Again, it might be necessary to revisit the issue of the Electoral Offences Commission as with indeed every aspect of election law. How we can insulate the judiciary from over involvement in the electoral process. The spate of pre-election injunctions did not do the image of the judiciary any good. I am therefore, after engaging in very wide consultation recommending to NEC for approval the following eminent Bar persons for appointment into this high powered Nigerian Election Laws (Reform) (NBA) Panel.

1. Olisa Agbakoba SAN- Chairman
2. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu SAN – Alternate chairman
3. E. C Ukala SAN- Member
4. Adeniyi Akintola SAN-Member
5. M.I. Abubakar- Member
6. Ebenezer Obeya esqr- Member
7. Granville Abibo esqr- Member
8. Boma Ozobia -Member
9. Professor Offornze Amucheazi- Member
10. Wole Aina- Member
11. Dr. Garba Tetengi- Member
12. J.S Okutepa- Member
13. Hauwa Shekarau esqr- Member

THE CRISIS IN THE JUDICIARY

We had expected at this meeting to lay before NEC the report of the High Powered Committee of the face-off in the judiciary and other ancillary matters. However, I understand that there are still some T’s to cross and I’s to dot. As the report is not ready I am content to hold my peace for now so as not to prejudge their views on the matter.

RT. HON. AMINU WAZIRI TAMBUWAL

I congratulate the Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambawal (Hon. Bencher) on his election to the exalted constitutional position of Speaker of the House of Representatives. To whom much is given much is expected. We have happy that his Party the PDP have agreed to put the events of the past few days behind them and support the Speaker in the herculean task of moving the nation forward. That is how it should be. Political parties must read the mood of the People. Speaker Tambawal is a nominee of the elected Representatives of the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. His election cuts across Party lines. He should therefore be allowed to work in the overall interest of Nigeria.

To our own Rt. Hon. being our member will be no excuse for failure to perform. Two targets will form the basis of our yardstick in assessing your reign. (1) You must reverse the era of legislative self indulgence. The perception of the legislature in the eyes of Nigerians is not very complimentary. They are seen as only out for the own economic interest and every other issue is subordinate. Please change that perception so that we can boast that a lawyer has made the necessary difference. (2) There are at least 10 Justice- Sector Reform Bills in need of full and proper passage. Most have been pending since 1999. We demand uninhibited access to you while the process of their passage, which we trust you will expedite, comes to pass. The bills are:

• Bill on Criminal Justice Administration, to harmonise and consolidate the criminal procedure laws, reduce delays and provide for more humane treatment of suspects.

• Administration of Justice Commission Bill; to ensure effective supervision and coordination of the administration of justice by all the relevant organs.

• Legal Aid Council (amendment) Bill, to expand the powers of the Legal Aid Council to provide better legal assistance to indigent persons in coordination with other service providers.

• National Human Rights Commission (Amendment) Bill,  to improve the autonomy of the National Human Rights Commission and give it more investigative powers.

• Community Service Bill, to encourage the award of non-custodial sentences under the criminal justice system, particularly in minor offences and offences involving young persons.

• Victims of Crime Remedies Bill, to improve respect for the rights of victim of crime in the criminal justice system.

• Elimination of Violence in Society Bill, to control violence in society, especially violence directed at vulnerable groups like women and children.

• Bill to Amend the Legal Practitioners Act, to improve the standard of legal practice by, among other things, introducing continuing legal education requirements for practitioners.

• Prison Act (Amendment) Bill, to provide a more appropriate legal framework for prisons administration and the treatment of offenders, consistent with constitutional and international standard, as well as to make the prisons more corrective institutions.

• Police (Amendment) Bill, to introduce fundamental changes in the mission and operations of the police and improve its effectiveness in providing security services to communities.

• Evidence Act Amendment Bill, to bring evidence law up-to-date with current developments in IT.

• Legal Education Act Amendment Bill, to provide a legal frame work to ensure that legal education regime responds to current needs of the law students, the legal profession and the wider society. 

We wish you a successful tenure in your new capacity.

CONCLUSION

Once again, I wish you a fruitful NEC meeting and a safe journey back to your respective destinations. 

Joseph Bodunrin Daudu SAN
President, Nigeria Bar Association
Abuja, 09-06-2011