You had the duty and honour of addressing the new Senior Advocates of Nigeria last Monday (September 26). How acceptable was this, in view of the fact that you’re not a Senior Advocate yourself?

The Constitution of the NBA does not make any provision, and we certainly do not expect that it will, for part of the qualifications of the office of the president to be silk.

Yes, I agree it’s unprecedented, we’ve not had situations like this. We’ve had situations where there have been petitions in the past, but petitions that had to do with such persons, not an uncleared matter. There was the precedent that had to do with the late Chief Sola Rhodes. There were petitions and he was conferred the following year. If at the end of police investigations Mr. Pinheiro is not found to be connected, is not being charged, I hold the opinion that they should be able to confer him with the rank.The NBA received petitions from the family of the late M.D, from the Association of PTOs, the management and Board of Mobitel, from the wife of Mr. Jacob, and even from Mr. Pinheiro himself. But the issue here is loss of life, not just a criminal matter, so we are awaiting the police report and then we will take the next step.

Your speech during the swearing in of the new SANs last Monday, has been interpreted to refer to the current face off between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

I didn’t mention either of them in my address, but actually I cautioned that nobody or group of individuals should for personal reasons or interest endanger or put at stake, the peace or stability of this nation and that our political leaders should always place as number 1, the interest of Nigeria. Because power really, is held in trust for the people and they should always see themselves as accountable to the people and therefore always put the interest of Nigeria first.

It was one of the issues I raised in my address on Monday. We commend the patience and extreme fatherly disposition exhibited by My Lords, the Chief Justice and Justices of the Supreme Court, because if what was reported by the press is correct we believe that sounded like contempt in the face of the court, which the Supreme Court should have dealt with outright. But we decided that we should be taking each matter on its own merit, so we’ve requested for, and we’re waiting for, the processes that were filed in that matter and a report of what actually took place in the Supreme Court to decide what we should do. Of course, the first thing would be to refer the matter to the Disciplinary Committee of the NBA, which if they find there’s a prima facie case, would refer it to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, otherwise called the Body of Benchers Disciplinary Committee. We will then take the appropriate decision.

You’ve seen how the conference is organised in Prague. Yearly, the NBA’s conferences are badly organised - insufficient conference bags, lawyers not well treated in giving out the bags, always some hue and cry over the conference materials, hotel accommodation and halls inadequate. What do you hope to pick up from this conference?

You realise of course, that I came in as the substantive president of the NBA on July 25, and the conference was just about a month thereafter. The structure for the 2005 annual general conference had been put in place essentially. The first problem with the last conference was the venue. But we must really commend the NBA for being able to have a successful conference in Jos. From the records, 5,500 lawyers came to Jos. Success cannot be based on numbers. I doubt if Jos has more than 3,000 hotel beds, so for those lawyers to be able to bear such situation without serious recriminations is quite commendable.

This issue was raised at NEC, at the pre-conference NEC on the eve of the conference, and I told them NEC went to sleep! When the issue or decision that this conference would be holding in Jos was announced by the erstwhile president, nobody said a thing! Now, we also held then that the next conference would be held in Port Harcourt. So what I challenged the Port Harcourt Branch is that yes, you’ve been given the right to host the conference, but please let me have the list of facilities, hotels and all that - don’t take it for granted that you’re hosting the conference. What we’ve also resolved to do is that latest by next month, we’re going to put in place the conference planning committee. The last conference for example, the committee was inaugurated in April. They didn’t have enough time. This time they’ll start early. We are going to name members who we believe have ideas, who are ready to serve, who are competent. A lot of our members want to be on the conference planning committee, but it’s not going to be like that. We hope that we’ll really improve and we’re bearing in mind members who’ve also had international experience in conferences. In the final analysis, what we really need to do, is a restructuring in the NBA. One of the things we need to look at is the office of the General Secretary. Should we not have a Director of Administration, similar to the Registrar that we have in some professional bodies, so that there’s continuity? Then, we’ve also been thinking, shouldn’t we have an events manager? We’re believing God that next year, we’ll have a very well organised conference.

Are you going to continue along Chief Bayo Ojo’s path of reforming the NBA electoral process, since next year is an election year?

I made that promise in my address in Jos. We are going to have electoral reforms. I don’t know if it will be before the elections. The present NBA Constitution says constitutional amendments can only take place at the annual general conference. You would have thought that that would include emergency general conference, but when we looked at bye-laws, it says bye-laws can be amended at annual general conference or emergency general conference, which means it would appear to make a distinction between AGM and Emergency General Conference, which may mean we cannot amend in an Emergency general Conference. If that is the view of the Association, then it will have to be at next year’s conference. But some people are already thinking that we can put these things in place and do it the first day and guide next year’s elections. A situation where a contestant for the office of president has to virtually travel to 80 or 88 branches that we have, is unnecessary, unreasonable, expensive and risky. In the course of last year’s campaign, I called A.B Mahmood and J.B Daudu, we met in Port Harcourt and I said, gentlemen, what are we looking for? I gave them instances when I called somebody in A.B’s team, he was leaving Warri in the night for somewhere, called somebody in J.B’s team, he was leaving Aba for Onitsha late in the night! I said, what are we looking for? Until somebody else dies in this process before we realise that we just need to have a change. The electoral process for electing our president is scandalous and no longer acceptable, it’s embarrassing! We’re going to do something about it.

The NBA is yet to discuss this issue, but we’ll be discussing it. Like I stated at our last Annual General Conference in Jos, the NBA is supportive of the Federal Government’s fight against corruption and we have resolved to have zero tolerance of corruption. What we are against is selective application of the rules. This raises some issues because he’s a serving Governor and the issue of immunity comes in. I personally hold the view, subject to what experts in international law would say, that if it arises from our Constitution it’s a domestic immunity which applies within Nigeria. But talking about conventions, international law now, I wonder if it applies beyond the president and officials at the federal level. Even at that, as a result of the several conventions that the Federal Government has signed in its fight against corruption, I think that any of its officials and we’re hoping to see even people who are higher than Governors in the government hierarchy that might be found involved in such things being made answerable. Whether abroad or in Nigeria. Zero tolerance, like I said. For the Bayelsa Governor, nobody is guilty unless it is proved, for now they are just allegations. People should be patient and let us see what they have against him. I’m sure he will have his day in court to explain his own part