By Gboyega Akinsanmi
A former President of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN) yesterday threw his weight behind Mr. Dele Adesina’s bid for election as the NBA President.
Daudu, who presided over the Bar between 2010 and 2012, justified his decision to support Adesina on the grounds that the association “needs a leader with tested ability to lead learned colleagues acquired from the grassroots.”
He endorsed Adesina, NBA’s former General Secretary in a statement yesterday, urging lawyers nationwide to elect him overwhelmingly on the account of his experience, integrity and maturity.
In his two-page statement, NBA’s former president admitted that the Bar was divided between the leadership rank of SAN and non-SANs among other criteria or factors at least for the office of President.
He, also, acknowledged that the Bar “is embroiled in a crisis of sort with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). The beneficiaries of the legal economy emanating from the CAC are largely the exclusive preserve of young lawyers.
With the crisis the NBA has at hand, Daudu argued that the ‘Aluta’ strategy of resolution adopted by the young lawyers “is only fanning the resolve of management of CAC not to compromise its stand.”
On these grounds, NBA’s president noted: “It will take the maturity and experience of a tested leader such as Dele Adesina (SAN) to resolve this and several other issues confronting lawyers and Nigeria as a nation.”
Besides Adesina’s capacity to manage the NBA with experience and maturity, Daudu observed that Nigeria “is in dire straits. As a result, this is not the time to have the Bar led by novices in the art of conflict management.”
He noted that the country “is plagued by severe security challenges in the nature of unrestrained kidnapping of our citizens, highway robbery, financial defalcations and malfeasances in government circles and the frittering away of the common patrimony of Nigerians.”
