By Abdulrasheed Ibrahim
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has released the new proposed amendments to its 2015 Constitution. When the Committee set up again to amend the NBA Constitution called for memorandum from lawyers, I for one deliberately refused to send any unlike in the previous amendment of 2020. Why must an Association derive pleasure in the ritual of amending its Constitution virtually under every regime? Is such constant amendment not questionable? Upon going through the latest proposed amendments my reaction somewhere was that : “Reading through some of these amendments, it is like asking the children of Israel to go back to Egypt after crossing the red sea. Why must NBA make amendment of its Constitution an incessant ritual? When you say the Presidency should now be by succession after 2024 rather than by election, does this not question the motto of the NBA that says ‘Promoting the Rule of Law’? To me some of these amendments are worse than the military coups in the African continent now being condemned by many people.”
When civilised institutions and associations are going democratic, why must a professional association such as NBA (an association of learned men) be thinking of plying a different route? There are certain things I cannot keep mute on and I will continue to write, talk and make suggestions. It is the choice of those concerned to either heed or ignore as Chinua Achebe had said it all : “A fly that has no one to advise it follows the corpse to the grave”.
Now let us look and examine some of these new proposed amendments to see whether, if NBA eventually approves them in its forthcoming Annual General Conference (AGC) , it can lay claim to be truly democratic. Under the Part II Section 7 that deals with the General Council of the Bar, the composition of the Representatives of the Association in the council is 20 members, 9 of whom must be Senior members of the Association of not less than 25 years post call and another 9 members of the Association of not less than 10 years post-call all spread across the 3 geographical zones. The incumbent President and his predecessor in that office are to fill the remaining 2 slots to make 20. The initial 18 members are to be elected in the National election and must have the following qualifications according to the new proposal: