I have been resisting the temptation to comment on the invitation of VDM to NBA annual conference as a panelist. Yes I have because I think I have seen and had enough of diminishing etiquette and ethical standards in the professional Association of lawyers called NBA and I am on sabbatical leave from NBA activities. But when I read VDM saying that the legal profession is no more noble, I think he was right. Those who brought arts infested firewood to the house must endure the visits of lizards.
NBA brought itself down and it must be ready to receive the insults from its guests who saw the conduct that demonstrated clearly that NBA has lost the respect and dignity of nobility as an association. Here is an association whose motto is promoting the rule of law desecrating the rule of law in the conduct of its own affairs and the shabby treatments members go through in attending the annual conferences of NBA even after paying heavily to attend these conferences.
Just see the Ankara bags that members were given for the 2026 conference. Yet nobody can talk about it. This lack of nobility in NBA did not start with Afam Osigwe SAN outgone National leadership of NBA. NBA has lost everything noble. Rights of members are violated with impunity and we got no remed. We trivialize otherwise serious matters affecting the nobility of the legal profession on the alter of primordial selfish technicalities. What should be taken seriously is trivialized by those who should show the light.
On the 27th August 2018 I wrote: “I think NBA has lost the moral right to advocating and claiming the right to promoting the rule of law in Nigeria. In the running of the affairs of NBA and even in the on going conference does NBA as profession association of lawyers respect and observe the rule of law? The association itself and its leadership have subverted and have been subverting the will of lawyers and the rule of law on several occasions.
On many occasions lawyers who paid and have been paying their annual practising fees and conference fees have been cheated and not well taken care of. For instance I paid #200,000.00 for this conference and what I got yesterday was just a bag, writing pad and biro without any material in the bag. The bag, the biro and the writing pad cannot be more than #5,000.00 in any market. Yet there will be no accountability. Lawyers are being cheated in their own association and nobody cares. I think NBA has lost the moral right to talk of promoting the rule of law and due process. The leaders of the profession have all decided to adopt sidon look attitude. Many have argued and pleaded for us to forget and forge ahead in NBA. NBA has been wounded by its leaders and the leadership wants the wound healed on the large iron piecing the body of the association. How can we heal the wounds of NBA without first removing the iron. It is an irony that NBA as physician cannot heal itself yet it is prescribing cures for ailments plaguing our society. For me the way we are going unless something is done and urgently too lawyers may be forced to take their destinies in their hands”.
The issues I raised in 2018 got even worse now. For me when VDM said lawyers are not noble anymore, he saw how naked and hollow the legal profession is now and how it has thrown its nobility overboard. When a masquerade dances naked in the market, it certainly will lose the awe with which it is held. When we defend the charade in the association because we stand to benefit from it and we condoned it, why should we blame VDM when he said the legal profession is not noble in Nigeria.
If serious issues bothering the existence of the legal profession were to be discussed, the VDM would not be an appropriate panelist. But what do I know. Our code of ethics is on leave now. Let us leave VDM. It is lack of nobility in the profession that make VDM very popular in Nigeria. Even as lawyers where do we go for remedies for wrong done to us in NBA.
Henceforth, before we pay for any conference, NBA must furnish us with the list of speakers and entertainers.
It is arrant nonsense to pay for a conference of that magnitude and be met with a character like VDM .