Osigwe bows out, Badejo-Okusanya inaugurated as 33rd NBA President

Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya has been inaugurated as the 33rd President of the Nigerian Bar Association.

Badejo-Okusanya was sworn in at a ceremony in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Friday, after taking the oath of office administered by her predecessor, Afam Osigwe, SAN.

The event was attended by senior members of the Bar and Bench, government officials and other dignitaries.

In her inaugural address shortly after taking the oath of office, Badejo-Okusanya vowed that lawyers who engage in abusive and insulting posts against colleagues would face public proceedings for bringing the image of the association into disrepute.

She spoke against the backdrop of controversies that trailed the NBA election that brought her into office, including concerns raised over technological difficulties that reportedly prevented some eligible members from voting.

Badejo-Okusanya, however, rejected allegations that the election was manipulated or fraudulently predetermined, saying she secured the mandate through her campaign across the country.

She also announced plans to establish an election reform committee, to be chaired by Dr Babatunde Ajibade, SAN, to examine the association’s electoral architecture and recommend reforms.

She stated, “I’m conscious that the election which brought us here generated some controversy, and that technological difficulties prevented a number of eligible members from exercising their franchise. I do not however accept the allegation that the outcome was manipulated or fraudulently predetermined.

“I work hard. I took my message to lawyers across the country and I received the mandate that has brought me before you today. But confidence in an election is strengthened not diminished when legitimate concerns are examined openly.

“Our responsibility is not to trade accusations or remain imprisoned by a contest that has ended. It is to ensure that future NBA elections command even greater confidence among our members.

“I will therefore accordingly establish an election reform committee to be chaired by Dr Babatunde Ajibade, SAN to undertake a comprehensive examination of our electoral architecture.

“The committee will consult widely, receive memoranda and recommend the constitutional, institutional and technological reforms necessary to deliver even better elections that we have hitherto have.

“Let me sound a note of clarification. Universal suffrage has come to stay. Our task is to just make it work better. And I invite my co-contestant, our regional bar for branches, past leaders, young lawyers, old lawyers and every concerned member not to sit in their homes and officers or hide behind their keyboards and participate constructively in this process.”

Badejo-Okusanya said the election had ended and urged members to work together to rebuild confidence in the association’s systems.

“We may disagree about the election that has passed but there was no fraud in that election. So let us work together to build the confidence in our systems because the lack of confidence that we express is presenting an extremely negative perception of the Nigerian Bar Association to the outside world.

“And on that note I want to implore all well-meaning members of the bar including my co-contestants to join me and lend their voices to condemning the increasingly distasteful practice of campaign abuse. This unwholesome practice has no place in a noble profession like our. And there will be scant tolerance for it. We will deal swiftly, decisively with anyone found making abusive and insulting posts against colleagues, senior or junior.

“Such lawyers will be subjected to public proceedings for bringing us all into disrepute in the eyes of the public who look up to us and are increasingly aghast as all right thinking colleagues are at the type of language that lawyers employ on social media against other colleagues all in the name of politics. So are coming after you,” Badejo-Okusanya declared.

She pledged to be president of all members of the association, regardless of how they voted during the election.

She continued, “I will be president not only of those who voted for me, but of every member of the Nigerian Bar Association. The Bar is still my constituency. I acknowledge my co-contestants. Their participation enriched the contest and demonstrated their willingness to serve our profession.

“And I invite them and their supporters and the ideas they champion to become part of the work ahead. The election is over. The work belongs to all of us now. There are no victors, no vanquished in the Nigerian Bar Association. There is only one bar, one profession, and one shared responsibility to leave both stronger than we met them.”

On her plans for the association, Badejo-Okusanya promised to prioritise the economic wellbeing of lawyers, particularly vulnerable members of the profession.

“We will engage with the office of the Hon. Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice and strengthen awareness of and compliance with the legal practitioners remuneration order.

“We will also establish a committee to develop lawful and practical mechanisms for encouraging the payment of living wages to our most vulnerable members. You see the burden is too high on our colleagues to have to be explaining to clients that there is a new sheriff in town.

“The NBA has to take up that responsibility. We have to go out there and push that message out so that everybody knows that there is a remuneration order that they must comply with.”

Earlier, the immediate past President of the NBA, Afam Osigwe, SAN, expressed gratitude to members of the Bar and other stakeholders who contributed to his tenure.

Osigwe said it was not his duty to score himself, leaving posterity to judge his administration.

“We ask for posterity to tell us whether we got it right or not. We made a promise to you to be a proactive bar. We did our best to do that.

“We may not always have succeeded, but know that if we failed in any way, it was not for want of trying. It was not out of bad faith, but it must be a mistake on our part that we may have failed. Not because we didn’t want to succeed.”

He described steering the affairs of the NBA over the past two years as an honour of a lifetime and one of the best things that had happened to him.

Osigwe said he was handing over a bolder Bar to his successor, whom he described as competent, adding that the experience had made him a better person.

He also apologised to anyone he might have offended during his tenure, saying, “Forgive me. I can’t wait to let some other person assume this body, and it is Mrs. Oyinka Osamabande Jokusoye. But I do so not because I think I’m invited to suffer. It’s a call to service, and she comes fully prepared.”

In his farewell remarks, Osigwe formally handed over to Badejo-Okusanya and presented her with a handover note.

Addressing his successor, Osigwe said, “This is your handover note. A more comprehensive one will be given to you later. I hereby now out.”

The inauguration marked the beginning of Badejo-Okusanya’s tenure as the 33rd President of the NBA.

Present at the ceremony were the Minister of Trade and Investment; the first female Director-General of the Nigerian Law School; the National President of the Ghana Bar Association; the President of the Uganda Bar Association; and three former NBA Presidents, O.C.J. Okocha, SAN, Okey Wali, SAN, and Augustine Alegeh, SAN, who delivered goodwill messages, among other dignitaries.