Nigerian Bar agog with campaign activities as NEC lifts ban

With the ban on campaigns lifted for the 2014 NBA National officer’s elections, the Nigerian bar is once again agog with campaign activities with aspirants’ manifestos and declarations flying around.

The pronouncement lifting the ban was made at the just-concluded National Executive Committee meeting which held in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja May, 15, 2014.

Some campaign programs, declarations and manifestos sighted this week include those of Austine Alegeh, SAN, Adefunke Adekoya SAN and a few others.

Alegeh who wrote formally to colleagues shortly after the ban was lifted, declared his intentions to contest for the office of the President of the bar. He expressed a desire to provide quality and selfless service to the Nigerian bar, urging members to accept his offer for positive developmental change to the association.

 In the same vein, Former First Vice President of the NBA, Funke Adekoya, SAN has also urged delegates at the forthcoming Nigerian Bar Association

(NBA) Delegates Conference in Abuja to elect her as the next NBA President, stating the bar would not regret that choice.

In her campaign Manifesto which outlined how she plans to turn NBA around, Adekoya who is a former NBA 1st Vice President said her administration would revolve around a 3-point Agenda aimed to tackle

Human Resource Development, Organisational Development, as well as Institutional and Legal Framework Development.

She observed that non-accountability of the leadership to the electorate has become the bane of modern leadership, assured members of the bar that her administration would be accountable and responsive to the yearnings of NBA members and stakeholders. “If elected with your mandate, I will fulfill the specific pledges that I have outlined above.”

She added: “There is no better time than now to elect a female NBA President to replicate at the Bar the giant strides done by the first female Chief Justice of Nigeria at the Bench. If we all are agreed that things have to be done differently, then I can tell you without equivocation that the time to elect a female NBA President is now. It is an idea whose time has come.”

The NBA National Executive Committee at this meeting also approved the 14th and 15th of July, 2014 as the dates for the elections which would hold in the city of Abuja.

As part of its deliberations, the ExCo called on the National Assembly to pay more attention to the business of law making, particularly with the life of the 7th Assembly coming to an end, and many Bills are bogged down in the process of being passed into law, and will all lapse at the end of this 7th Assembly.

The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Nigerian Bar Association, the 2nd highest decision making organ, second only to the Annual General Meeting (AGM), meets quarterly to deliberate on representative, regulatory, and public interest roles of the Nigerian Bar Association.

The Committee is made up of all National officers, Past Presidents, Past General Secretaries, Branch Chairmen and Secretaries, Branch NEC Representatives and eminent Bar Leaders and Senior Advocates of Nigeria, who are Co-opted as members of NEC, discussed issues bordering on national security, legal transformation, legal education, the legal profession, economic development, independence of the judiciary, good governance and the state of the nation generally.