By Innocent Anaba

Chief Okey Wali, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, is the chairman of the Legislative Advocacy Group of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA. In this interview, he reviewed the just concluded annual conference of the association in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. He also spoke on some other national issues.

Excerpt:

What is your assessment of the just concluded conference of the NBA?

•Chief Okey Wali, SAN.

To the glory of God, we came to a successful end of the conference with all the planning, sleepless nights, and all that. I am very happy that we came to the end of it all. It was indeed a very successful conference without any fear of sounding immodest.

We had several sessions and I don’t know of any of our conferences in recent times that had been better attended in terms of numbers. We had even pre-conference registration of over 5,000 lawyers, which is a record.

We have never had over 2,000 before this time. And more people registered at the conference venue, so, we had about 8,000 lawyers in this conference and with several break away sessions in several places.

What areas do you think should be improved upon?

The only thing I hope we really have to work on for purpose of the future is the sections. The sections must be alive to their responsibilities because to a large extent, they seem to forget themselves, that this is a conference where the sections are still running their programmes.

They organised beautiful sectional conferences but, when they come to Annual General Conferences, they now look up to the Central Organising Committee. Meanwhile, it is supposed to be the sections running their programmes.

What other shortcoming did you notice?

Even our own appointed managers also were not up to it. That was the snag. You’ll find out that you are in the conference planning committee, there is a session going on somewhere and somebody is calling you that there are no glasses for water, it can’t work that way.

The sections must be able to manage their sessions during our annual conferences, this is one lesson I learnt in this conference.

A number of far reaching resolutions were taken. How do you see those resolutions?

A number of fundamental resolutions were really taken and I was delighted. They include resolutions from legal justice sector matters to human nature, talking about trust funds for the indigent and impoverished, for areas or countries suffering from famine such as Somalia and so on.

It has struck the Bar to create trust fund for the welfare of humanity and mankind in general so, this is remarkable. Well a number of critical resolutions were on very topical issues of the moment. There is no doubt that they will affect the turn of events from now on.

What do you consider to be the unique features of this conference?

We had over 5,000 pre-conference registrations and that is a record. We have never had 2,000 pre-conference registrations. This is one of the most attended conferences of the NBA. The records are there.

Another good thing about this conference was that we have located venues around the hub, so it is not a conference where everybody is within one premises, so you have people at the Civic Centre, the main hub, even within the Civic Centre, you have about three sessions.

There was the VIP hall, another hall on the other side of the building, there was the State House of Assembly, the Ministry of Justice, the Court premises, so you can’t tell the number of people we have at the conference by going to one place alone but from the records, it is undoubtedly the best attended conference in a long while.

The NBA withdrew its members from the National Judicial Council, NJC, and also directed the new Senior Advocates of Nigeria not take the silk wig. How will this further the course of the administration of justice in the country?

We are all in the justice delivery system and administration. You know that the Bar and the Bench are members of the family and like every family, people are bound to disagree from time to time. What is important is for people to recognise that there was nothing personal about the issues.

They are all issues of principle and we have a very proactive president, who is able to supported the NEC of NBA. So, non of those decisions was the decision of Joseph Daudu, SAN. You saw the acclamation and the affirmation of what NEC decided at the pre-conference NEC meeting where all those decisions were made about withdrawing lawyers from the NJC.

The Bar has always had one issue or the other with the NJC beyond this point. Why is it like this now?

In fact it has come to a point where you are part of the NJC but you are not part of the disciplinary actions of the NJC. Whenever issues of discipline arise, lawyers are excluded.

So what are you doing there? If you are a member, you are a member for all purposes. Those are some of the issues but in a nutshell, it is a family affair and I believe that we all recognise that we are all members of the Bar, both the Bench and the Bar.

If you are on the Bench, your first calling is on the Bar. We are a family and we shall resolve it.