NBA ELECTIONS: THE IMPERATIVES FOR REFORM
PREAMBLE
If the Nigerian Bar Association does nothing else,
it must reform its electoral process. If Augustine Alegeh, SAN does nothing
else as NBA President, he must do one thing; help reform the NBA electoral
process. Mrs. Olufunke Adekoya SAN wanted to do it and she must do it for as a
respected member of both the outer and later the inner bar she has the
influence, passion, knowledge and the necessary know how to get it done, all be
it from the side lines now.
I do not believe that it is possible to
consistently err on the part of wrong. If it is not deliberate, you will
occasionally err on the part of truth. The NBA has consistently refused to
reform its electoral process not because it is wrong to do so, or that it can
not do so or that it does not realize that it is right to do so but it is
simply that it does not want to do so.
Why is this so? Why is the NBA so obdurate in its
refusal to reform its electoral process? The answer is simple if you ask me: it
is because we want to continue to cheat, we want to continue to do injustice,
we want to continue to corrupt our members, we want to continue to do the same
things we know are wrong with our national politics and our electoral system.
All so a particular kind of President will emerge!!!
“This process cannot produce the best candidate” I
heard from people severally and I believe it is true but I will say as the
former American President, James Garfield said, “all free Governments are
managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people”. That is to say and it
means that democracy can and may not produce the best. When the combined wisdom
of the people prevails, they elect the best candidate, when the combined folly
of the people prevails, they elect any candidate but the best.
For me though, it is not about the best candidate,
for what are the criteria for measuring the best after all? It is about the
right candidate and it should rightly be so. And you may want to know what I
mean by the right candidate? The right candidate is the one who would have won
the election if every Nigerian lawyer had the opportunity to vote. He may or
may not be the best, but we would have elected the candidate by popular choice
and we can all then swim or sink with him.
The Nigerian Bar Association’s two yearly election
ritual in the nation’s capital, Abuja, where national officers of the
association are elected has come and gone and this year’s edition was not any
less eventful as has become customary with any gathering of one of the largest,
dynamic and intriguing bar anywhere in the world. Those who won are savoring
their victory, those who did not win are moving on with life and probably
licking their wounds or strategizing to use this experience as a stepping stone
towards greater things.
For me personally all this is good but something
is not quite right and it is fundamental. The NBA as a leading professional
association in Nigeria and probably in Africa ought to know and should know
better. I will not belabor you with rhetoric but I will quickly identify and
highlight the points I think the NBA knows which well considered should spur
the NBA into action as it should become clear that the reform of its electoral
process is a moral, constitutional, political, social and economic imperative.
THE RIGHT TO BE HEARD
Firstly, from time immemorial the world and its
peoples struggled to be heard at the risk of being silenced forever by those
who do not want them to be heard. Ultimately the world came to realize,
understood and accepted that one of the greatest ideals of men are to be heard,
to be allowed freedom of choice, and to be left alone should they chose
solitude. Does the delegate electoral process the NBA has adopted assures this?
It does not.
FREEDOM AND LIBERTY OF CHOICE
Secondly, man desires freedom and liberty and it
is right that man has freedom and liberty. The 1960 Independence Constitution,
the 1963 Republican Constitution, the 1979 Third Republican Constitution, even
the stillborn or abrogated 1989 Constitution, the 1999 Constitution guaranteed
the chequered rights to freedom and liberty. Does the NBA delegate electoral
process allow every Nigerian lawyer who wills the freedom and liberty to choose
the man who will lead him? No, it does not.
GUARANTEE OF VOTERS RIGHT
Thirdly, a polity must guarantee the right to vote
and be voted for in any election and the votes should count. The world has also
recognized that the best way to guarantee this is through a universal adult
suffrage and every self respecting Constitution recognizes and guarantees this.
Now this is interesting; the subject of universal adult suffrage that is. Even
many Western epitome of democracy today did not allow universal adult suffrage
until the second part of the 20th Century.
It seems unfathomable now but even in the United
States, universal adult suffrage was only achieved in the latter part of the
last Century due largely to the agitations of civil rights groups, led by the
prominent African, American Baptist Minister, Martin Luther King Jr. and thanks
to the empathy of the young, charismatic Irish Catholic President, John
Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) who determined that the part of civil rights assurance
and especially universal adult suffrage was the way to go for America. What did
the American’s fear? See apartheid South Africa too!!! So I ask what does the
NBA fear? Why can’t the NBA allow everyone who has paid his dues and meet the
requirement to vote cast his vote in his local branch and then the result is
collated and sent to the national body. Put in another way, does the delegates
electoral process of the NBA guarantee the right of every Nigerian Lawyer to
vote? Yet again, it does not.
FAIRNESS AND TRANSPARENCY
Fourthly, people deserve to choose their leaders
in a fair and transparent manner. I do not subscribe to the populist believe
that democracy guarantees the best will emerge even where it is properly
adhered to. Let no one kid us, Barack Obama was not the best America could
offer when he was elected President. But then he was elected President from a
clear, transparent, best and edifying process that worked in an epochal manner
and all shades of opinion accepted the outcome.
To start with; because of the delegates system we
adopt, mushroom branches are created at the dawn of every election year to skew
the dynamics in favor of one candidate or the other; as many people as the NBA
President want are co-opted into NEC so they will vote for the favored
candidate; the branch Chair persons of the 109 branches of the NBA has complete
discretion on how and who to choose as delegates and they will choose only
those who will vote for their anointed candidate. In fact, many chair persons
are still at loggerheads with members of their branches over what some call
corruptly manipulated and unknown lawyers delegates list. Now whither the
fairness and transparency in the NBA delegates electoral process? None yet
again unfortunately. Haba, this process must be reformed.
COST AND EXPENSE
Fifthly, I worry about cost and expense. Why
should the cost of winning the Presidency of a professional association be so
prohibitive? Why should it be that a man must belong to a select group of
lawyers to be elected NBA President as it has become now. Why is it that a
discretionary title that does not prove you are better than anyone be the
basis, the starting point even, if you will seek to lead your professional
association? As in national politics, the trend in our elections in the last
few years shows that whoever will aspire to be the NBA President must either
have very deep pockets or have sponsors who do. He may possess no leadership
qualities and this way, he does not and most times will not deliver on his
electoral mandate because there is no incentive to do so. Infact the only
incentive is to mortgage the association to his sponsors or the powers that be.
All this because of the flawed delegates electoral process the NBA has
adopted!!!
Still on cost and expense, no one should lose
sight of the fact that every election year, we gather again after a few weeks
to hold the Annual General Conference of the NBA in probably another far flung
corner of Nigeria where heavy expenses are incurred again by members of the
association on travel, hotel and maintenance costs for one long week whilst the
AGC lasts. This is not discountenancing the logistics; risk and insecurity
involved taking into consideration the peculiar circumstances of our country
today.
RISK AND INSECURITY
Sixthly, we do not seem to appreciate the severity
of the attendant risk when we ask every delegate to come to Abuja to elect the
President of the NBA. Why should all the delegates go to Abuja? These things
can be better done and we know it. The question is why do we refuse to do them?
In the 21st Century, Lawyers, elites in Society have refused to
embrace and take advantage of technology. The NBA ought to be interested in how
the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators United Kingdom, an eminent body with
membership all over the world, elects its officers – that is if it does not
already even know. Why should the NBA ask its best to come to the nation’s
capital every two years for the mundane exercise of electing national officers
on roads that are death traps, in an era where planes are falling off our skies
and in a nation where boko haram and all manner of pocket and closet terrorists
are having a free reign/field day? Again, we must reform this delegates
electoral process of ours before tragedy strikes.
CORRUPTION AND INDISCIPLINE
Seventh point, Corruption and indiscipline will
destroy us as a profession and as a nation. Many branch Delegates came to
Abuja. I understand they got Hotel rooms from the candidates they supposedly
supported (whether they stayed in those rooms is a moot point) and they got
Hotel rooms from every other candidate if they will. Many got money to pay for
hotel rooms they did not need and did not take. We cry corruption in our
national life everyday and we do this in a professional association? We are the
ones, the one segment of society by virtue of our learning and experience who
ought to and should understand that corruption destroys all of us, but we do
not seem to care. May be we do not mind if we die or live.
Again, the delegates electoral process fuels and
encourages this level of corruption and indiscipline.
ZONING (THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM)
Eight point, Zoning? Really, how sad!!! We are not
a serious people at all. We seem to emphasize our differences and deemphasize
that which unites us. Zoning might well be right where we are sincere with what
we profess. But here we are not. I have canvassed elsewhere during the run up
to the 2008 election that it is all motion without movement. In an interview
with the nation newspaper, I told the world that it was not right to follow the
trend in national politics in a professional association. What example are we
setting? The right man cannot emerge in such circumstances. But as usual, who
listened? No one!!!
What does zoning now mean in the context of
national politics and at the level of the NBA? Zoning really means if by the
collective folly of the people, they elected the wrong candidate, they cannot
by their collective wisdom change and elect the right candidate next election
as they must wait till the time when it is the turn of the obvious right
candidate’s Zone to produce the President, at which time the candidate may have
moved on, may be too old for the rigours required, may have lost interest or
died even. Many at times I wonder and it baffles me how and why we seem bent on
importing everything wrong with our national life into the NBA.
NIGERIAN WOMEN AND POLITICS
Ninth point, I will never understand our women?
This is a familiar theme. Women are by nature not necessarily like men and even
by experience and disposition, the idiosyncrasies of the male Homo sapiens is
likely to be different from that of his female ilk. That said; Nigerian women
do not seem to appreciate their place in history. I do not know how many female
delegates were at the NBA elections in Abuja. I imagine if all the female
delegates alone voted for the female candidate, she would have won the
elections no doubt. Today they cry feminism, tomorrow they cry female
emancipation and as we speak they want affirmative action and worst of all they
want the men to do it for them. Women for the most part are the ones who told
me that the female candidate is the best. “But” they will always add. Trust me,
I always ask them “what is but?” The answer I got? Your guess is as good as
mine. Needless to say what they said.
Women do not love themselves. If they do, they
will not be where they are. Cue Sarah Jubril. Remember this woman wanted to be
President of Nigeria under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party. She
had so many female supporters and going into the primary elections in 2011 at
the Eagle Square in Abuja, she thought Nigerian women were sweet on her. What
happened? She got only one vote. As it turned out, she only voted for herself
eventually. One wonders what became of the many women groups, the many women
states delegates and even her female benefactors who made it seem they were all
for her? Tough women’s world you know!!!
Bottom line, women are their own worst enemy, they
do not love themselves and they do not want anything enough. But even at that,
I believe that if the NBA allows all women to vote in their local branches
instead of the delegates process that obtains right now then the women might
well have the freedom and opportunity to cast votes that can bring about a
seismic change in NBA elections. The atmosphere in Abuja is too chauvinistic
and suffocating for women to make a collective choice in their enlightened self
interest. In Abuja they can be easily swayed, canvassed, convinced, intimidated
if need be and finally corrupted to abandon a women’s common cause, if and in
the event there was one anyway. At their local branches, no such incentives can
be offered and therefore the likelihood is close to nil that the women will
vote against their conscience.
REFORM THE ELECTORAL PROCESS NOW
Tenth point, reform the electoral process now and
be damned. I have heard that Austin Alegeh SAN, the man who eventually won the
elections, the newly minted NBA President promised to do so and that he will
propose that to NEC. All that is great and I am glad that a President of our
august body has finally caught the electoral reform fire that many of us have
always canvassed and in this respect I reserve a special place of gratitude and
respect for the erudite Professor Chidi Odinkalu and Mrs. Funke Adekoya, SAN,
two people I know, who have tirelessly advocated a reform of the electoral
process of the NBA.
But I must hasten to add that I have also heard
that the new President will take away with the left hand what he wants us to
believe he is giving and willing to give to us with the right hand as he will
recruit an army of NEC members who will in a subterranean manner ensure that
the motion will not carry and thus the circus show that is right now the
delegates electoral process will continue. I do not know how informed these
sources are, but I hope and pray that they are proved wrong and that the
electoral process is reformed and the delegates charade retired into the
doldrums.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, these are the ten points I gleaned
from the soul searching I have done on this issue since that day in 2008, when
because the position of the NBA President was zoned to the South West, the
leaders of the bar in the South West prevailed on other candidates to step down
for the man who became the NBA President at the time and from my personal
experiences at the just concluded 2014 elections in Abuja.
As we have seen, the NBA delegates electoral
process does not allow all Nigerian lawyers the right to be heard, it does not
allow them the freedom and liberty of choice, it does not guarantee their right
to vote, there is no fairness and transparency in the process, there is too
cost and expense involved, the security risks are just too great, corruption
and indiscipline has crept into the process, hence the imperative urgency of
reforms.
Whatever we, members of the NBA wants to do,
whatever else the President of the NBA wants to do, reform the electoral
process we and he must as the circumstances and the realities today is that it
has become imperative that the process be reformed if we ever hope to elect the
right candidate to lead us again. I look forward to the year 2016 and the
elections of that year which will be conducted in the 109 branches (or more) of
the NBA, collated and sent to the national body and the NBA President that will
emerge from such a free, transparent, democratic, fair process, with the
legitimate mandate of all Nigerian lawyers.
In short, I look forward to an election that will
be everything the present delegates process is not.
I rest my case.
Stephen
O. Obajaja Esq. is a Partner at the Lagos Law Firm of Fountain Court Partners.
STEPHEN
O. OBAJAJA
Fountain
Court Partners
Block
36B, LSPDC Estate
Ogudu
Road
Ojota
– Lagos.
08098066172.
