National
Outrage Over El-Rufai’s Invitation To NBA Conference
Lawyers Boycott, Condemn Usoro
By Ayodele Oluwafemi
The outgoing president of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Paul Usoro and his successor, Olumide Akpata were on the spot on Tuesday as to who took the decision to invite Governor Nasir El-Rufai as a keynote speaker for the scheduled annual conference of the bar.
In response to the invitation, a number of lawyers have decided to boycott the virtual conference scheduled to hold between 26th and 29th August 2020.
In the programme bulletin, El-Rufai, Nyesom Wike, Rivers state governor, Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Justice Tanko Muhammad, Chief Judge of Nigeria, and Olusegun Obasanjo, former President, were listed as key speakers.
Other key speakers include: Ike Ekweremadu, former deputy Senate President, Abubakar Malami, Attorney-General of the federation, Brian Speers, President of Commonwealth Lawyers Association, and Dame Linda Dobbs, Director of Training of the Judicial Institute for Africa.
Dr. Obasanjo is the only one among the key speakers that is not a lawyer.
El-Rufai inclusion as one of the key speakers has been faulted by many lawyers, who are withdrawing their participation from the NBA annual conference due to the inclusion of the Kaduna governor.
Some lawyers argued that the ideology driving the NBA is antithetical to the personality and actions of El-Rufai, noting that El-Rufai shows disregard for the rule of law as the governor of Kaduna state.
El-Rufai was also accused of maintaining a silent posture to the gruesome killings in Southern Kaduna, hence, they opined that he should not participate in the NBA conference.
@itongwashington tweeted: “Dear @NigBarAssoc, I just ran through the list of speakers in the forthcoming virtual conference and Gov. El-Rufai’s name is on the list. I’ll be withdrawing my attendance and cancelling my registration for the conference. Thank you.”
As a result, some lawyers have withdrawn their participation from the conference, asking other lawyers to also boycott the conference.
Some were also passing blame between Usoro and Akpata over who made the invitation.
However, some lawyers argued that the president NBA president may have taken the decision for El-Rufai’s inclusion, considering the president-elect has not been inaugurated.
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