Beyond the Ballot: Shaping a Bar That Works for All

By Asiwaju Kunle Kalejaye, SAN

The inaugural address of Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, titled “From the Call to the Cause,” marks a historic turning point for the legal community as she officially assumes office as the 33rd President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) as she wa sworn in by her predecessor, Afam Osigwe, SAN, at the High Court complex in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Her leadership, the hiccup of her emergence notwithstanding, represents a historic milestone as the first woman elected to the NBA presidency through a competitive, though highly disputed, national ballot. Her address presents a powerful vision for a “bolder Bar” that actively confronts internal fractures, deep professional disconnects, and economic vulnerabilities. Central to her message is the core understanding that an association tasked with safeguarding judicial independence and speaking truth to power cannot effectively fulfill its national mandate if it remains internally fragmented. By focusing on the professional survival of young lawyers and vowing to act decisively against public misconduct, Badejo-Okusanya highlights an urgent reality: institutional strength requires collective solidarity and institutional determination. Fostering lasting unity within the NBA under this administration demands a deliberate shift from performative governance to deeply institutionalized, structural changes that build bridges across classes, factions, generations, and geographical divides.

To bring the NBA together, the new administration must incorporate proactive mechanisms for post-election reconciliation directly into its governance framework. The leadership must deliberately distance itself from divisive rhetoric and provocative nuances. The competitive nature of Bar elections often leaves behind lingering bitter factions that can stunt long-term cooperation and slow down progressive policies. By building an “olive branch” initiative that integrates runner-up contestants and their core campaign stakeholders into strategic national committees, the leadership can transform former rivals into active co-creators of the Bar’s future. Indeed this strategy which I dubbed the Abraham Lincoln strategy remains an eternal clincher.

Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election and famously appointed his chief Republican nomination rivals to key cabinet positions. Lincoln believed the country faced extreme peril during the crisis leading into the Civil War l. He wanted the most capable and influential leaders in his administration regardless of past personal competition. He valued robust debate over agreement, using differing viewpoints to make better decisions. This inclusivity must simultaneously bridge the widening economic and generational gap between senior practitioners and younger advocates. Enforcing standardized minimum remuneration and welfare requirements across all local branches will help reduce the economic alienation felt by younger members. To make this sustainable, the administration should establish joint mentorship hubs where senior legal practitioners collaborate with tech-savvy young lawyers on modern areas of practice, such as artificial intelligence, data privacy, and digital commerce, turning a generational divide into a symbiotic avenue for mutual professional empowerment.

True unity also requires restoring civil digital discourse through a comprehensive Digital Ethics Enforcement framework, fulfilling the President’s explicit warning against the breakdown of professional etiquette on social media. The profession has lost some vast mileage due to the digital posture of some members. To achieve this, the NBA can look to established global precedents where foreign bar associations have successfully navigated the complexities of digital misconduct. For instance, the American Bar Association (ABA) successfully integrated technological expectations into its framework via the Ethics 20/20 Commission, explicitly modifying its Model Rules of Professional Conduct such as Rules 1.6 and 8.4 to govern online confidentiality, misleading public statements, and deceptive digital behaviour. Similarly, the Law Society of England and Wales updated its practice note and compliance frameworks to penalize offensive online remarks, reinforcing that comments made by a lawyer in a personal capacity can still be actively disciplined as professional misconduct if public trust is damaged. By adopting a similar structure, the NBA can expand its own Rules of Professional Conduct into a clear code for online behaviour, utilizing its network of regional Ethics and Disciplinary Committees to monitor digital spaces and safely review flagged misconduct via secure portals.

Backing this framework with public disciplinary actions and a tiered system of sanctions will allow the NBA to decisively penalize cyberbullying, transitioning professional disputes into mediated internal forums rather than chaotic public platforms. This digital accountability should be reinforced by introducing mandatory continuing legal education (CLE) modules in digital etiquette, ensuring that practitioners maintain technological and behavioral competence.

Immediately, the NBA must dismantle the persistent perception that it is a “Lagos-Abuja centric” organization. Actively decentralizing national activities, rotating National Executive Council (NEC) meetings across various geopolitical zones, and providing direct financial and technical resources to smaller, rural branches will make every lawyer feel valued regardless of geography. Ultimately, by integrating these targeted, practical strategies and internationally proven ethical standards into the foundational ideals of her inaugural address, the administration can successfully unite its members and establish a cohesive, resilient front capable of defending the rule of law across Nigeria.

The new administration must pursue a deliberate policy towards attracting many docile members back into its fold.
If the new administration must know, the opaque electoral processes that had dogged the association in recent history has adversely affected the morale of a significant number but silent members of the Association. Chief Yomi Alliyu graphically stated the disturbing position when he posited in an opinion piece that: “The NBA has been hijacked by political lawyers to the disaffection of real practitioners of law. “Elections from 2016 or so vide e-voting had been manipulated to favour members of this class.”

The new administration must therefore consciously pursue reconciliatory steps that rein in all members. As at now, the silent class war must end for NBA to achieve its full potential.

I was sorely tempted to headline this peice: Nigerian Bar Association: the road to Kigali. I refrained because I still saw a silver lining which this new administration can latch on to save the NBA from itself!

The “road to Kigali” serves as a grim warning about the risk of total institutional fracture, polarization, and potential irrelevance. If proactive steps are not taken to unify and reform the body, it faces the danger of fracturing into competing, ethnicized, or regionalized professional factions, effectively ending the era of a single, unified voice for the Nigerian Bar.

The 1992 Port Harcourt Conference Crisis, was a definitive moment that brought the NBA to the brink of permanent destruction. Today, unless we play the ostrich, the cries of war are abroad but the present leadership could etch their names in gold if the NBA is consciously, deliberately and clinically steered from self implosion. Their job is cut out for them.Failure to seize the moment may end up placing us all on the road to Kigali.

Asiwaju Kunle Kalejaye SAN
Eagle102.5 FM Ilese-Ijebu

Why Atiku’s subsidy gambit rattles Tinubu, By Farooq Kperogi

Onaiyekan: Is Tinubu insensitive to Nigerians’ plight? By Bolanle BOLAWOLE

turnpot@gmail.com 0705 263 1058

(Published in the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune edition of Sunday, 9 August 2026).

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) recently held a closed-door meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu after which one of the bishops, John Onaiyekan, Bishop Emeritus of Abuja, went public with the contents of the meeting. The public was aghast when the president was reported as saying that hunger has been in the land before he was born!

But is it a lie? It is not! Tinubu reportedly asked the church leaders to feed the people if they – the church leaders – actually knew the people were hungry! Is it not a fact that many church leaders and denominations today behave like the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus Christ’s era – whom the Lord described as “serpents and generation of vipers”! – who “bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers”? As many as eight times, Jesus said unto them: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” He also repeatedly called them “fools and blind guides.” (See Matthew 23: 1 – end).

How many of the Catholic bishops who confronted Tinubu with the case of hungry Nigerians do not have hungry parishioners under their watch? How many of the hungry do they feed? Are they themselves among hungry Nigerians? How many of them, having two coats, give one to the naked (Luke 3:11)? How many follow the example of the Fathers (Acts 4: 32 – 37) or the Marxian doctrine of “From each according to his ability and to each according to his need”?

Despite the hardship in the land, which the Bishops went to Tinubu to complain about, are Church leaders not demanding tithes, vows, first fruit, and all manner of offerings – love offering, sacrificial offering, seed offering, thanksgiving offering, etc. from the same suffering masses? Before our very eyes, are they not building cathedrals worth billions of Naira, driving expensive cars, flying private jets, and living life to the hilt? Are they not?

However, this is an uncomfortable truth no one wants to hear! I should know because I am involved – if you know what I mean! Without speaking for Tinubu – because I, too, have my own grievances! – this must have been what he hinted at but which, understandably, was interpreted as an act of insensitivity. But since I, too, was born, up to date, I make bold to say that notable Nigerian musicians one after the other have complained of hard times. It is as if there has never been a time when things were okay in this country – except when we look back! Better times are usually behind us. No matter how bad a government might have been, succeeding governments always appear worse! That has been the narrative!

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It appears to me that Tinubu loves to be audacious once in a while. Like when he made his “O lu’le” speech at Abeokuta, detailing how the then President Muhammadu Buhari contested election thrice but failed until he, Tinubu, came to the rescue. The icing on the case at the occasion was his angry reference to Gov. Dapo Abiodun, as “eleyi”, meaning “this one!” Consider as well his wandering off-script “subsidy is gone” statement in his very first speech and on his very first day as President and Commander-in-Chief!

Tinubu possesses enough knowledge of the media to guess what kind of headlines his statements can attract. In the case of the Catholic bishops, maybe he thought he was safe behind the iron curtain of confidentiality – until one of the bishops chose to tear the veil, forcing the Presidency to respond.

Presidential response to Onaiyekan

The response by Temitope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media and Publicity, compelled this intervention lest we, again, throw the baby away with the bath water. Often, once we have pitched our tents for or against, we fail to see the merits in opposing advocacies – all to the chagrin of our collective good. Let’s hear from Ajayi:

“There is something fundamentally inappropriate about Cardinal John Onaiyekan granting a television interview to offer his own account and interpretation of what transpired during the private meeting between the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria and President Bola Tinubu. It is, in my view, an abuse of clerical privilege.

“The bishops requested an audience with the president. He granted the audience graciously. They presented, as was their right, a catalogue of the country’s economic, social, and security challenges as they saw them. Except for their grudging acknowledgement of the benefits of NELFUND, they were dismissive of the other great things done by the administration. The bishops were notably acerbic in their submission, but the president listened to them patiently and responded.

“That should ordinarily have been where the matter rested. None of the issues raised by the bishops is beyond scrutiny or rebuttal. Their assessment is neither scripture nor an article of faith. It is a perspective, and perspectives can be challenged with facts and evidence.

“President Tinubu did exactly that, responding point by point to the issues they raised. On the bishops’ demand for the return of schools to their owners, the President was surprised that such an issue could be tabled before him, as it is a matter for the states to resolve, in line with our Constitution. So, he asked the bishops to take the matter to the governors and reminded them he returned mission schools in Lagos State (to their original owners) when he was (the) governor.

“The President argued that the bishops’ characterization of the country’s current condition was incomplete and, in several respects, inaccurate. He pointed to measurable progress on the economic, social, and security fronts. He did not pretend that Nigeria’s problems had disappeared. He acknowledged that significant economic and security challenges remain. His point was that the country has emerged from ‘a dark tunnel’, that his administration has laid the foundations for recovery and that the next phase is to ensure the greatest number of Nigerians feels the gains.

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“What the clerics often overlook in these interventions is that governing a country is fundamentally different from shepherding a church. In a democracy, every interest group, including the Catholic Church, has every right to demand more from (the) government. That is part of democratic engagement. But the president of a nation of more than 200 million people is required to make difficult choices every single day. Those choices involve competing interests, limited resources, and imperfect options…There is no president…who can wave a magic wand and make Nigeria’s accumulated problems disappear overnight.

“It is easy to compile a list of national problems. It is far more difficult to acknowledge the disasters that have been averted. Whatever anyone thinks of President Tinubu’s policies, it is impossible to ignore the fiscal crisis he inherited and the measures taken to pull the country away from the edge of a financial cliff. Even the bishops themselves should recognize that one tangible consequence has been the restoration of greater fiscal stability across many states.

“Countless civil servants and pensioners who, for years, endured unpaid salaries and pensions are now receiving them more regularly. That was certainly not the reality in many states from around 2014. Even about four years ago, 27 state governments struggled to meet even their most basic obligations. Many of those civil servants and pensioners are themselves parishioners in Catholic churches. They know, from lived experience rather than official pronouncements, that there has been real relief in the regular payment of salaries and pensions. While this does not erase the discomfort many Nigerians still face, it is wrong to dismiss or ignore those improvements casually.

“So when President Tinubu reminded the bishops of these facts during the meeting, he was not, as Cardinal Onaiyekan later suggested, being aloof or dismissive. He was presenting evidence to support his argument that the country is not standing still. A disagreement over facts should not be interpreted as arrogance. The same applies to security. The bishops declared that Nigeria is bleeding. The President thinks otherwise. President Tinubu did not deny the seriousness of the security situation. Rather, he acknowledged the challenges while outlining the gains recorded by the Armed Forces and intelligence agencies across different theatres of operation…

“Cardinal Onaiyekan’s Arise News interview also reflected a familiar error that many ideological and professional critics make. They often assume that only critics speak truth to power while everyone around a leader is either unwilling or incapable of doing so. It is an attractive narrative, but it is rarely true. What truth does anyone really need to tell President Tinubu that he does not already know? As president, he has multiple channels for feeling the pulse of the country…

“The Catholic Bishops discharged what they considered their moral obligation by presenting their concerns to the president. President Tinubu, for his part, accorded them respect by granting them an audience and responding to every issue they raised. That exchange reflected the civility expected in a constitutional democracy.

“Reciprocity should have dictated that the confidentiality and dignity of that engagement be preserved. As such, it was inappropriate for one of the participants to emerge almost immediately on national television to provide his own version of what was essentially a private conversation with the president…” That was Temitope Ajayi, SSA to the President for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Obligations of confidentiality

I asked Google: Is it appropriate to divulge the specifics of a closed-door meeting without the other party’s consent or prior knowledge? Google: “No, it is generally inappropriate and a breach of professional trust to divulge the details of a closed-door meeting without the other party’s consent or prior agreement. Why it is inappropriate: Breaches trust: Closed-door meetings imply an expectation of privacy and confidentiality so participants can speak freely. Damages relationships: Revealing private discussions destroys mutual respect and makes future cooperation difficult. Distorts context: Sharing only one side of a private conversation often misleads the public or other stakeholders who were not in the room.”

Again, I asked: Was Onaiyekan mandated by the CBCN to address the media after their meeting with President Tinubu? Google: “There is no official indication or report that Cardinal John Onaiyekan was specifically mandated or designated by the CBCN to grant media interviews or brief the press following their meeting with President Bola Tinubu…”

Then I asked: Is Onaiyekan the official leader of CBCN? Google: “No, Cardinal John Onaiyekan is not the current leader of CBCN; he is the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja and previously served as CBCN president from 2000 to 2006.” The current president of CBCN is Most Rev. Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Kaduna.

Answering another question, Google described Onaiyekan as “a forthright and consistent critic of President Bola Tinubu’s electoral legitimacy and economic policies…” Arising from the above, we can see that Onaiyekan and Tinubu are no strangers to one another but are “old customers”, so to say!

Neither here, nor there

That said, Onaiyekun enjoys freedom of speech as enshrined in our Constitution, regardless how acerbic or far from the truth those views may be. Tinubu, too, has the right of reply which his being a sitting president does not deny him. Achebe said “Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too. If one says ‘No’ to the other, let his wing break.” China’s revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong, put it this way: “Let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” Scriptures cap it all in Proverbs 11: 14 thus: “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.”

Tinubu’s man described the president meeting with the bishops as a privilege; no, it wasn’t! It was their right – and the president’s duty. There is nothing “gracious” in it; it is an obligation duly discharged.

Onaiyekan, however, ought to know that closed-door meetings should be accorded the confidentiality they deserve. To break this important rule is to burn bridges and destroy trust. As journalists, we do not rush to press with information gotten from such sources; we store them to be discretely leveraged in future.

That Onaiyekan was not specifically mandated by the CBCN to speak on its behalf makes his case worse. If it was so important for the bishops to speak, why not their president?

It is not everyone that understands the nuances of Nigeria’s prebendal politics. Femi Adesina, media adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, said they were flying with Buhari when news of Tinubu’s “O lu’le” atomic bomb dropped on Buhari at Abeokuta reached them. Who was detailed by Buhari’s kinsmen on the same flight to break the news to Buhari? Adesina! Why him? And, now, why Onaiyekan? Dirty jobs reserved for who?

* Former editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-chief of The Westerner news magazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.

Onaiyekan: Is Tinubu insensitive to Nigerians’ plight? By Bolanle BOLAWOLE