Dr. Babatunde Ajibade (SAN) is the primary member of the 1989 set of the Nigerian Legislation College to be conferred with the distinguished rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). On this interview, he speaks about why he desires to turn out to be the following President of the Nigerian Bar Affiliation (NBA) and on different sundry points.
Younger legal professionals typically complain that the NBA does nothing apart from accumulate annual dues and organise the bar convention. What’s your view?
Younger legal professionals have to be the main focus of the NBA. They’re the way forward for the occupation, and what the occupation shall be is a operate of how a lot it invests in them. I’ve complete plans to handle points referring to their welfare and development. These embody applicable remuneration, circumstances of service, cost of working towards charges and department dues, required statutory deductions and contributions, coaching and capability growth, enhanced use of know-how, sexual harassment and bullying within the office, amongst others.
Why do you need to be President of NBA?
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I believe legal professionals ought to select me over the opposite candidates for quite a lot of causes. Firstly, I’m the one one that mixes the abilities and sensible data of a solicitor and advocate; having been engaged in each transactional and litigation observe at comparatively excessive ranges. This places me in a vantage place to grasp and deal with the challenges encountered in each of those sides of authorized observe in Nigeria.
Secondly, I neither belong to nor am I sponsored by any of the ability blocks throughout the NBA. Thus, I’ve the power to unite the bar and advance the reason for the authorized occupation with independence.
Thirdly, I’m not beholden to authorities and have made it a matter of non-public selection and coverage to not courtroom authorities briefs; thus guaranteeing my independence. In addition to, I cherish my good identify, fame and integrity and consider that these are vital qualities required for anyone looking for to steer the bar.
I’ll carry vital alternatives for worldwide collaboration to the NBA, notably the younger legal professionals, due to my involvement with worldwide our bodies such because the Worldwide Bar Affiliation (IBA) the place I’m Co-Vice Chair of the Africa Discussion board.
What are your ideas on zoning adopted by NBA for its elections?
Ordinarily, I might be in opposition to zoning and would urge that management ought to be primarily based solely on benefit. Nevertheless, the fact of our geopolitical state of affairs in Nigeria and the necessity to make sure that no part or group feels marginalised or excluded is what has made zoning a necessity.
Having mentioned this, I don’t consider that zoning and the pursuit of management by benefit are mutually unique. I consider that each zone and part in our nation has the potential and capability to supply leaders we are going to all be happy with. The problem is to function the zoning system in a fashion that such leaders are allowed to emerge and usually are not suppressed by obscure and parochial preparations that search to impose the desire of some on the numerous.
You have been unable to safe the backing of the pan-Yoruba legal professionals affiliation, Egbe Amofin, for the 2020 NBA presidential election and you’ve got faulted the method by means of which your brother silk, Dele Adesina, was nominated. Why?
That is the exact level I used to be referring to in my earlier reply. The explanation I’ve refused to be certain by the Egbe Amofin choice course of is as a result of it was obscure and missing in objectivity or transparency. It failed to fulfill the essential check of a suitable choice course of for quite a lot of causes. I’ll identify just a few of them.
Way back to August, 2019, and with none session with the generality of legal professionals of Yoruba extraction, the de facto chief of Egbe Amofin, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), referred to as a gathering at which it was declared that Deacon Dele Adesina (SAN) was Egbe Amofin’s most popular candidate for the NBA presidential election.
Within the face of protests at this try at imposition, this agenda was stepped down. It’s equally noteworthy that Chief Olanipekun and Adesina are in-laws. Deacon Adesina’s son is married to Chief Olanipekun’s daughter. Regardless of this clear and evident battle of pursuits, Chief Olanipekun continued to preside over and dominate the Egbe Amofin choice course of. He was instrumental in funding and convening the assembly that was referred to as to provoke the choice course of. He additionally presided over the assembly and proposed the structure of the committee that was set as much as display screen candidates and in addition proposed its Chairman, Chief Niyi Akintola (SAN).
Regardless of calls for made on the day the committee was arrange, it failed to supply the standards by which it proposed to select from among the many candidates till late within the day on which the deadline for submission of pursuits was to run out after which said that its determination would nonetheless be subjected to ratification by the management of Egbe Amofin.
It was in these circumstances that I withdrew from the method; which had clearly turn out to be a farce at that time. I wrote a letter to the choice committee chaired by Chief Niyi Akintola setting out in nice element what had transpired up till then and the explanations for my withdrawal.
Your determination to run for president might cut up the South West votes in favour of a non-Yoruba candidate because it occurred when Augustine Alegeh (SAN) grew to become president in 2014. Ought to this occur, some may even see your candidature as sabotage of the core South West aspiration. What’s your tackle this?
My candidature shouldn’t be designed to sabotage the South West aspiration. In spite of everything, I’m a Yoruba man too. Nothing would please me greater than making the Yoruba race proud by successful the upcoming election and making vital and impactful contributions to the advance of the Nigerian authorized occupation and its justice sector for the good thing about all Nigerians.
As a way to additional set up my concern for and need to guard the curiosity of the Yoruba race within the upcoming election and forestall a recurrence of what transpired in 2014 when my good friend and brother Austin Alegeh (SAN) from Edo State defeated the three candidates from the South West, I had really helpful to Chief Olanipekun that it could be clever for us as Yoruba to succeed in an lodging with our brothers from the Mid-West such that we might rotate the zoned places of work within the NBA between us on an agreed method.
Certainly, I had taken it upon myself to go to Chief T. J. Onomigbo Okpoko (SAN) and different leaders of the Mid-West bar in Warri to debate this problem ever earlier than the assembly of Egbe Amofin held in Ibadan, they usually agreed that this was the wise answer to the perennial competitors between our two sub-zones.
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Source: www.dailytrust.com.ng
