The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has dismissed remarks by Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers State describing the association as a paper tiger, noting that its commitment to the defence of the judiciary remains unshaken.
Wike had at a book launch in honour of the recently retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Mary Peter-Odili, said the NBA had become a paper tiger and failed in its responsibility to protect the judiciary in Nigeria and rescue it from political intimidation.
In response, the NBA in a statement on Thursday by its President, Olumide Akpata, said the association would naturally ignore specific criticism but it was difficult not to respond to Wike’s baseless allegations against the NBA, particularly as he is a senior member of the legal profession who will be presumed by many to be speaking from a position of knowledge.
Akpata said, “It is indeed quite ironic that Governor Wike made these unfortunate statements at an event held in honour of Justice Mary Odili in support of whom the NBA stood firm in the face of that brazen attack on her home in Abuja by some persons who are now standing trial in our law courts.
“That Wike has chosen so quickly to either forget or ignore this, and other actions of the NBA in support of the judiciary, is suggestive of a dissonance that is most disconcerting and should give one serious cause for concern.
“It is very convenient for the governor to ask Nigerian lawyers (as he did at the Book Launch) to emulate their apparently more courageous Pakistani colleagues when the issues at stake do not concern him directly; but when in 2019, the very same Nigerian lawyers had the temerity to question his handling of the security situation in Rivers State and threatened to boycott the courts if there was no abatement of the rising insecurity in the state, he was only too quick to lambast the lawyers and to withdraw his support for the association in the state.”
He added, “The politico-legal history of Nigeria is replete with the commendable role that the NBA has played and continues to play as a primary defender of the rule of law and protector of the judiciary in Nigeria. While the NBA might have at different points dithered in playing these roles, the NBA is not known to have shirked that responsibility in recent times.”
“Our commitment to defend the judiciary and its integrity has remained unshaken and the NBA has been making spirited efforts to discharge that responsibility creditably in the less than two years since this administration of the NBA assumed office. Illustrative examples abound to drive home this point, and three well-known examples remain fresh in the consciousness of Nigerians and constitute recent history that cannot be rewritten even by a personality of Wike’s calibre.”