The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has suspended its former General Secretary, Mr. Nimi Walson-Jack, a Solicitor to the Law Society of Nigeria (LSN)’s as a member of the NBA National Executive Council (NBA-NEC),
This is in making good its threat to punish any of its members that promoted the creation of an alternative association called (LSN).
The NBA had in a communique issued at the end of its last quarterly NEC meeting in Abuja last year resolved to sanction “all members of the Bar seeking to promote or register a new lawyers’ association, whether using a new name or an old registered, Law Society of Nigeria (LSN).
“NEC particularly resolves that a Past NBA General Secretary, Mr. Nimi Walson-Jack who acted as a solicitor to the promoters of the new law society be stripped of his privileges as past General Secretary and consequently, be suspended from being a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Association.”
It also said it had begun steps to de-list the LSN at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
The LSN’s emergence in October 2022, which has executive members including Kunle Ogunba (SAN), President; Mr. Nimi Walson-Jack, Vice President; Mr. Abdulqadir Alhaji Sani, Secretary; Mr. Olasupo Ojo, Welfare Secretary; and Mrs. Chioma Ferguson, Treasurer, threatened to end the NBA’s 89-year monopoly.
Other member are Mr. Douglas Ogbankwa, Publicity Secretary; Mr. Zara Umar Yakubu, Financial Secretary; Mrs. Alice Ogaku Awonugba, Assistant Secretary; and Mr. Hassan Sheriff, Assistant Publicity Secretary.
However, Walson-Jack has protested his suspension, saying it violated the NBA Constitution and also breached his right to fair hearing.
In a statement seen by The Nation, Walson-Jack faulted both the process and substance of arriving at NBA’s sanction against him.
According to him, the NBA was “anti-Rule of Law and earned our previously esteemed Association a place in the hall of infamy of dictators and anti-Rule of Law elements who abound in mushroom organizations across Nigeria and the World.”
In his view, the NBA-NEC “has no power to suspend, expel or remove a statutory member like me unless the Constitution is amended, an exclusive preserve of the Annual General Meeting.”
He added that “The leadership of the NBA, by its resolution, breached the Constitution of the NBA, my fundamental right to a fair hearing, and the right of my Clients to Counsel of their choice. The President of the NBA was the accuser, persecutor, prosecutor, and Judge in his cause.”
The Nation
