Before YC Maikyau SAN was issued certificate of return, as the 31st NBA President, open clandestine consultations had started, among NBA politicians of the South East extraction.
Repulsive as this is, those who are involved, justified it by insisting that NBA election is determined by who was the first to tell you that he or she is interested in contesting, come two years from the date he or she is telling you.
I witnessed this first hand, during the induced abortion on my quest to serve the Bar as Publicity Secretary.
People I met, agreed that I have something to offer but with a sigh, they shake their heads and say, “but Chè, you are coming out late. I have pledged support to Ogaga or Habeeb. Ogaga and Habeeb, have gone far. Habeeb, started immediately he was disqualified in 2020. Ogaga, immediately Olumide Akpata emerged and made him Secretary of Welfare Committee. So Chè, you have an uphill task, like a dwarf wanting to mate a horse.”
By insistence that starting two years before ECNBA is inaugurated, adds to the campaign cost of NBA. This fail on deaf ears like an inexperienced married woman looking for a child but wears jeans to bed.
If you indicate early, be ready to pay BPF for some of your colleagues for two times, you will assist them go to a conference and sort out other logistical needs. You must attend branch law weeks or send in monetized goodwill messages and oil the Chairmen and Secretaries. If you don’t do these, just forget making any impact on Election Day.
At the just concluded NBA AGC, I am aware that about 4 persons, held meetings, reached out to persons whom they feel they must sign on/poach; indicated interest to take over YC’s seat, even before Olumide Akpata vacated and brought the seat for YC to sit and sign the Oath of Office Form on 26th August, 2022.
This is not excusable and if I were to be YC, none of them who had openly indicated interest or held a meeting on how to takeover from me, will be made to head any Committee. Their interest will not be to serve but to use instrumentalities of NBA to their 2024 advantages. They will deliberately sabotage YC, instead of working with him to deliver a dynamic Bar.
For the office of General Secretary zoned to the North, 3 past Chairmen, have unequivocally spoken to me, of their intent to push off Adegbite even before he finds the key to the Secretariat, from where the “suspended” Joyce Oduah hid it.
As it is up there, so it is down here. I was also asked if I am interested in 2024 and that I should start early, that my mates had started consultations.
A lady’s name was mentioned by those she had approached and toasted openly, that come 2024, she wants to take a satisfactory bite on Publicity Secretary.
I wish her and them well. 2024, is still donkey years away, let me see how Habeeb Lawal will perform and areas that need strengthening before I can nurse any feelings.
I want to serve to make impact not to acquire title and garnish my CV.
May Habeeb succeed, so that whosoever that wants to take his seat in 2024, will merely be taking the responsibility of that officer to a higher level.
