The president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Akpata has rejected efforts by the Body of Benchers to amend the Legal Practitioners Act 1975 (LPA), which he says would overly extend the body’s powers and install it as the regulator of the legal profession in Nigeria.
Mr Akpata expressed the NBA’s position in an open letter addressed to the Chairman, Body of Benchers, and former president of the NBA, Wole Olanipekun, SAN.
The Body of Benchers (BoB) is a statutory Body established by the Legal Practitioners Act. Section 3 of the Act stipulates that the Body of Benchers is the Legal Body of Practitioners of the highest distinction in the legal profession, which shall be responsible for the formal call to the Bar of persons seeking to become legal practitioners as well as disciplining of erring lawyers.
The NBA president premised his position on the fact that the BoB “receives subvention from the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and can to that extent be characterised as being sponsored by, involved with, or reliant on the FGN.”
He also stated that most of the about 240 members of the Body “are extremely busy people who are unlikely to prioritize, or fully focus on, the affairs of the BoB. It is perhaps for this reason that the drafters of the LPA, in their wisdom, deemed it fit to donate only two major responsibilities to the BoB to wit: (i) the responsibility for the formal Call to the Bar of qualified candidates; and (ii) the discipline of the members of the legal profession through the instrumentality of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC)”.
The president recalled that the BoB had granted his request for time to study the Bill to amend the LPA, during its meeting which he first attended in 2020.
Mr Akpata says that, “on a cursory review of the provisions of the Bill, we discovered some controversial provisions including the proposal to designate the General Council of the Bar – the body statutorily charged with the general management of the affairs of the NBA – as a Committee of the BoB and therefore indirectly confer on the BoB supervisory powers over the NBA. That is not all. To remove any doubts or uncertainty as to the intentions of its drafters, the Bill contained an express provision seeking to arrogate to the BoB, the power to create a Caretaker Committee to take over the affairs and finances of the NBA whenever a dispute among members of the National Executive Council (NBA-NEC) makes it impossible or impractical for the NBA-NEC to manage the affairs of the NBA.”
He went on to state that the BoB later saw reason, after the NBA’s strong objection, and deleted the controversial provisions from the Bill. But, later in November 2021, upon an invitation by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters led by Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele, to a public hearing on the Legal Practitioner’s Act CAP, L11 LFN 2004 (Repeal and Re-Enactment) Bill, 2021 (SB. 815), Mr Akpata said further that he was stunned to discover that “additional radical amendments to the LPA were introduced in the Bill without the knowledge or concurrence of the NBA.”
“Chief among these was the definition section of the Bill, where “the Nigerian Bar Association” was defined to include the Incorporated Trustees of the Nigerian Bar Association or any other Body incorporated for the governance and management of the Legal Profession. The intended effect of this was apparently to surreptitiously sneak into the LPA, statutory recognition of other associations of legal practitioners in Nigeria.”
The NBA president added that these moves are “a blatant attempt to create a division in the profession and to decimate, if not extinguish the NBA outright. This is not an outcome that anyone who means well for the legal profession should encourage, and as a past president of the NBA, I am sure that you would not allow this under your watch as Chairman of the BoB.”
According to him, “Putting it starkly, the NBA therefore views the proposals of the BoB as contained in the Bill as part of concerted efforts aimed at whittling down the influence and voice of the NBA from different quarters.
While this might not be immediately apparent, conferring on an agency, that derives its primary source of income from the government, the power to issue annual practice licences, stamps and seals and essentially to determine who has the right to practice law in Nigeria, is tantamount to sounding the death knell on the NBA. It would be nothing short of incongruous for such a government-sponsored body to exercise control over an Association like the NBA that is set up to routinely challenge the policies, actions, and activities of the very same government.
Mr Akpata said his stance is also reflected in the resolution of the emergency meeting of the NBA-NEC on 18th March 2022, “wherein the NBA categorically denounced any Bill which seeks to confer on the BoB, whether directly or indirectly, regulatory powers over the legal profession in Nigeria.
For the avoidance of doubt, the NBA unequivocally states that the BoB, a body that is funded and sponsored by the FGN and the composition of which is, quite frankly, in need of urgent reform, is not equipped to exercise regulatory and supervisory powers over the NBA, except if the design is to ultimately subjugate the NBA.
Indeed, the BoB, as currently set up, lacks the structure, manpower and resources to efficiently or effectively undertake some of the functions in the Bill that affect lawyers on a daily basis without frustrating the practice of lawyers across the country.”
The NBA president’s letter dated June 20, 2022 comes a day before an emergency meeting of the BoB slated for Tuesday, June 21.
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