By Dayo Benson

One of the things you promised to do if elected NBA general secretary is to bridge the gap between the national office of the NBA and branches throughout the country, how do you intend to do this?
By the grace of God as soon as I am elected we will be bridging the gap between the national office and the local branches.

With the little experience in the NBA Secretariat in the past years, I found out that the happening in the national officer, largely is a reflection of what is happening in the larger society whereby the leadership is disconnected from the followership.

The leadership is interested in coming to read to us economic statistics of how works are being done. But you and I   know that the statistics do not tally with the reality.   That is exactly what happens in NBA.   Most of the programmes on papers are fantastic.

But once they are not implemented and do not suit the immediate needs of the branches, they become very ineffective.   They are as good as white elephant projects which remain dreams never realised.   Take for instance, it doesn’t make sense to me as an individual, that NBA should hike up cost of registration fees for conferences.

At the end of the day they declare huge profits, while subjecting the generality of members to untold hardship.   Because of the high cost, some of them do not the opportunity to attend.   You increase fees to such a high level only to come back to declare profits, profits for who?   It’s not a limited liability company we are running.

If it were, all we need to say is ‘come and share the dividends, so that everybody will benefit’. The question is how are the funds being managed?   I can assure you majority of members do not know.   So it does not make sense to me.

That anticipated profits, why don’t you spread it down so that every lawyer would benefit by way of reduced conference fees.   This will enable majority of lawyers to be taken to conferences. The intention may be that conferences should be self sustained, but then in the process, you deprive majority of lawyers from partaking in the conferences, some of which come only once in a year.   So there is a clear disconnect.

Another issue you said you said you’ll is that of   insurance for lawyers which has been on the front burner since 2003.   How do you intend to achieve this?

For me, I strongly believe that it is not sufficient for NEC to pass a resolution and prove that an MOU has been signed by a service provider and then the matter is laid to rest.

The Secretariat must be at the fore-front of ensuring, just as we intend to galvanise and get popular views on every issue that affects the association.   We will similarly be at the fore-front of promoting the programme.

Now referring to the insurance policy you talked about, besides sending text messages within the first week, the scheme has not been promoted.

I’m sure if you sample opinions of members at our branches and say, the NBA has signed an agreement for insurance policy, many of them will be surprised.

They are not aware of it.   You pass a message to the branches and demand the records of their members that are enrolled into the scheme.   More importantly, you precipitate a resolution, that is my view because as second vice-president, I am also chairman of welfare committee of NBA.

Our recommendation to this present executive was that rather than wait for the month of January to March, sending bulk SMS to members that they should pay their practicing fees as at when due, failure of which amounts to official misconduct, why don’t you take out of about N400 million you rake in as practising fees and pay upfront their premium for this insurance policy and simply inform members by same bulk SMS that whoever pays his practising fees on or before 31st day of March that is the cut off day, is automatically covered.

I think people will be motivated more if they appreciate the benefits they stand to derive from the process.   This is because you belong to an association in order to   benefit. For most members, their connection with the NBA starts and ends with payment of their practising fees.   They don’t know how else it affects their lives.

When you pay from what you’ve already gathered and send the same bulk SMS to every member that if you pay your practising fees as at when due, you are already covered by the policy, I’m sure you will have a larger percentage of members coming to pay their practising fees.

I don’ t know about some cosmopolitan branches like Lagos, but where I come from in Jos which is a rural branch and endangered economy, when we lose a colleague, it is difficult for us to raise N100,000 to N150,000 to support the family.

But if we have an insurance policy in the event of such occurrence, and somebody is covered with a minimum of N2 million, you can imagine how happy and interested members would be to pay their practising fees.   If you increase practising fees, they will not complain because they know that the benefit will still come back to them.

We will not make things too rigid, we will make it open. On every issue we feel so passionate about we will originate it from the president, copy every member of NEC which of course includes representatives of the branches and also require their resolution on the issue. If they shoot it down, all well and good. If they vote for it, then we have their support to drive it.   Any association that cannot protect or take care of its members does not worth its name.