NBA Conference: 10,000 Lawyers Storm Rivers

Abut 10,000 lawyers are expected to attend this  year’s National Conference of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) which officially opens in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, today, August 22, 2011. Registration of conferees started yesterday at the new Township School complex along Moscow Road in Port Harcourt. The conference is scheduled to end on August 26.

Speaking at a pre-conference National Executive Committee meeting of the NBA at the Rivers State House of Assembly complex in Port Harcourt, yesterday, the NBA National President, Joseph Bodurin Daudu SAN, said “the conference comes at a time when the legal profession is  reeling from serious crisis of confidence precipitated not by  or within the Bar, but by our alter-ego, the Bench”.

He noted that members of the public “regarded lawyers as ministers in the temple of justice, adding that members of the Bench are also entrusted with the sacred duty of adjudicating disputes between persons, and between government and other persons, with a view of determining their civil rights and obligations”.

According to him, “this function comes with onerous obligations adding that “as equal partners in the constitutional quest to provide justice to the people, the Bar and Bench will at all times protect and uphold the Rule of Law, observe due process and exhibit greatlearning and independence in the discharge of its sacred functions in order to inspire confidence in the administration of justice”.

Daudu stated that members of the Bar are expected to show total  respect for the law of the land and defend it at all cost, noting that “the Bar would fail in its duties to the society and the course of justice where it condones tyranny from any arm of government”.

He advised the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloysious Katsina-Alu to shift the swearing-in date of new Senior Advocates  of Nigeria to September 19, 2011, to enable the recipients participate fully  and well in the on-going conference. He recommended that the NBA should boycott the event as currently scheduled and added that “any legal practitioner who attends will not be referred to by members of the NBA with any rank he possesses, and if  any body such as the body of Benchers, will lose all privileges and be stripped of membership of any committee or body that the NBA participates in”.

The conference which has as its theme,  “Sustaining an Enduring Democracy in Nigeria”, is open to legal practitioners, corporate counsel, judges, policy formulators, civil servants, industry practitioners, legislators, law enforcement agencies, academics and others stakeholders.

Alpheaus Paul-Worika