What we need now is a strong association that can achieve its primary goals – Paul Usoro

In this edition, the newly elected president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) speaks of his election into office and the task ahead of him. EXCERPTS…

Congratulations on your election as President of the largest bar association in Africa. What next?

Thank you. The first step would be to bring everyone together, because we are stronger together and we need to work together. What we really need is an association that is strong and can achieve its primary goals and objectives I have actually reached out to those who contested against me in that election and I will sit down with them if they are willing and discuss ideas that will benefit the association. We’ll discus ideas that are useful to the association and implement them in my tenure accordingly. It will be a win-win situation for everyone.

How would you describe the election, which brought you into office?

A lot of ugly things were said about me but I maintained my cool all through the period – pre and during the elections. And I had also asked all my supporters to follow this lead. I have said it severally, that winning an election is not a moment for triumph. I would love to lead by example, and it is my example that will then trickle down to my supporters. I don’t have anything to prove, except to show in the next two years when the records are brought up that this was one of the best administrations of the Nigerian Bar Association.

What do you have lined up for the next few months?

I would very quickly focus on the welfare of lawyers. Another critical issue to be focused on is the brutalization of lawyers by security agencies. That is something I would want to deal within this first one-month, deal with the issues and make sure they don’t happen again.

4. Following this, would be a total reorganisation of the NBA. I would like to see financial accountability and transparency in the things that we do. I have worked in institutions. I have been on the boards of larges organisations. One way that you achieve this is by ensuring that your financials are prepared and published, so that everybody can see what you are doing. Starting from the first quarter of this administration, I would ensure that we have well prepared financial statements that contain everything, that would be easy to understand.

How would you achieve this?

To achieve this, we would ensure we engage the right caliber of staff in the NBA National Secretariat that can prepare these statements. That particular project has multiple ripple effects. One, is it will engender confidence in members of the association. Another things is that in the process you’ll see efficiency in work. Thirdly, you’ll start having proper institutions. This will also ensure that we have moral equity.

Any plans regarding the controversies on stamp and seal?

I do intend to too into the issue of stamp and seal. I would like to meet with the contractors and see what the real costs of these stamps and seal are. Don’t forget that we are getting into September. As we take over in September, we’ll prepare in advance and see that lawyers get their stamps and seals early enough. I am determined that we should never have such a situation again.

There seems to continuous rambling and complaints about the quality and cost of the NBA conferences. How would you tackle this challenge?

We would work on our Annual General Conference early enough. It might look like it’s one whole year ahead of us, but we must put in the work early enough. Another complaint I hear frequently is cost of our conferences, particularly the AGC. We can only start to plan and think of how to manage that cost if we can have a look at how has it been determined over the years.

We will also working on a process, which will desegregate the content preparation for the annual general conference. In other words, lets have different sets of people work on the content of the conference. Let the sections and their committees and the different fora have someone, responsible with regard to the content of the annual general conference. Then, we should have a different set of people look at the logistics and costs. These are some of the things we’ll loot at in the first few months of our tenure. Then of course we’ll ensure we play our role as the voice of voiceless and also ensuring that the promotion and protection of the rule of law is constant.

Some have challenged the election process, accusing the ECNBA of discrepancies and also calling for an audit, while others have even gone to court to challenge the elections. In the midst of these allegations, do you consider the process free and fair?

The process was free and fair. Let me give you some perspectives on this Chams issue. Essentially let me repeat what Chams had said. They said Paul Usoro had no shares in Chams. They also said its Chairman, Mrs. Awosika had no shares in Chams, she is an independent director.  Chams had said that Access Bank where I sit as director has no interest or shares in Chams. They also said that neither Paul nor Mrs. Awosika was involved in the process for the purposes of the election. I don’t know if you have seen anything that contradicts those factual assertions, but I haven’t seen any.  My take is that as lawyers we aught to deal with facts and not speculations.  If there is anybody who has facts that contradict those four sets of facts I just stated, let them bring them out. Crenet was brought in to handle the verification exercise. I didn’t know Crenet, just like I wasn’t involved in how Chams was brought in. I didn’t know Crenet and Chams provided the platform for the election.

What I would urge my colleagues to do is to understand that in making allegations that are not fact-based, we are actually not only diminishing ourselves, but the entire association. It is not helpful. I will rather deal with facts. Provable facts, and we all know what facts are, according to the Evidence Act.

Having said that, the elections have come and gone and I personally think it would not be profitable to keep dwelling on the elections. Are there lessons that we can learn from it? Most definitely there are. The process of verification was rather difficult and it went through different levels of challenges. But even as an association, we haven’t captured the data of our members to be used in future. Maybe that is a lesson that we should learn.

We should try to look at the lessons we can learn from this whole process and some things we can take away from what happened in that election. That would be more profitable.

There are allegations that almost 80% of  the lawyers in your home branch were not verified  for the election and this has given rise to questions as to why the ECNBA went ahead to use Chams Plc., with all its attendant issues and its inability to resolve the member verification crisis?

Let us begin with the allegations. It would be interesting to know how anyone came by the information that the lawyers from my home branch Lagos weren’t verified.  I haven’t seen those statistics. The chairman of the branch has not told me so.

By the way, there are some who had attempted to verify with Crenet and they had challenges at the first instance. However, those challenges were subsequently addressed. I had people who said the exercise was seamless when they verified on the Crenet platform. So indeed, I have not heard these complaints.

You see, those allegations are easy to throw up, but I am looking for the facts to support these allegations. I haven’t heard any branch chairman complain that members of his branch couldn’t verify.    So let our allegations be fact-based.

Having made that point, it is understandable that in a clime like ours, when elections are won and lost, there is always a lot of passion. Even in this century, if a man dies even at 100 years, there would be family members who would say that this is not ordinary – believing rather that it is witches and wizards in the village who killed him. Sadly, this is the issue with our elections. People hardly concede to defeat in elections, even where it is glaring that the said election was free and fair. It is a culture thing. All we can do about it is rise above actions such as this, which hold us back.

How do we right these perceived wrongs and criticisms that continue to trail the elections?

I have already mentioned that I will reach out to the candidates. The NBA is one big house that has enough rooms to accommodate everyone and its only one person that can lead at any given time. If it has pleased the membership and God to make me the leader, I will lead with diligence. I will lead example, by having to speak with the different parties, including the parties who may have litigations right now in court. We’ll find a way to heal the wounds if any, without compromising the integrity of the association. 

Many said you ran a rancour-free campaign, no abusive language and no mudslinging at your opponents. But on the issue of zoning, the East is on record to have adopted a candidate and two of you ran against that candidate. Does this not make nonsense of the issue of zoning and adoption as enshrined in the NBA constitution?

First of all, I am from the East, and it was on the platform of coming from the Eastern zone that I ran for the election. So, from that perspective, it is quite clear that I am a beneficiary of zoning. But what you mixed up is what the constitution says, then juxtaposing it with what some other organization says that is not affiliated with the NBA.

There is indeed such an organization that had adopted their own candidate. The NBA didn’t give them any authority to adopt any candidate. The NBA didn’t say their candidate must win. All that the NBA says is that the candidate for the office should come from the East, and I come from the East. I don’t see how that in any way negates that principle of zoning. Now, with regard to that voluntary association, I think one of the thing they need to understand is the fact that their candidate was defeated doesn’t mean they are defeated. An association exist to protect the interest of their members. I am not a member of that association. So, it is understandable that they wouldn’t have promoted my own interest. So, I had to stand on my own platform.

So, if they promoted and their candidate and he didn’t win, what they need to do is to hope that next time, if they decide to adopt a candidate and this candidate wins. Or they should try and enlarge the coast to bring in other people and make it more competitive. For me, I have always believed that this business of having to adopt does not always bring out the best in the association. Why do you have to adopt? We can zone, and then let different bodies in that zone adopt whomever they wish. We must give the people a choice.  We must avoid a situation where we have one person foisted on us and we must vote that person. That would be a fait accompli.

Outside of the elections, there have been concerns over the operations of the sections of the NBA. We have the Section of Business Law, Section of Legal Practice and Section of Public Interest and development Law. Apart from the SBL most other section have been in comatose for many years. The SLP through the concerted efforts of Miannaya Essien, SAN just bounced back at their conference in Port Harcourt recently.  SPIDEL is still trying to reorganize. What would be your strategy to revive those sections to ensure they get back to ideals they were set for in 2003 by the Olanipekun administration?

It’s a very simple thing to do really. We’ll start by examining what happened that led to those sections being inactive. When we identify what those challenges are, then we’ll apply the right cure.

Secondly, if like you pointed out SBL has been operating well over the years, what is the model? Can we apply the same method to the other sections? In deed there should be collaboration between the SBL and the other sections to ensure that form a synergy that would make all the three sections work.

We’ll find a way to reenergize and reinvent those Sections and ensure we put the right people there to get them working again at optimal level.