How Dele Adesina, SAN Emerged as Egbe Amofin Candidate – Chief Niyi Akintola, SAN

How Dele Adesina, SAN Emerged as Egbe Amofin Candidate – Chief Niyi Akintola, SAN

Chief Niyi Akintola (SAN) is the chairman of the caretaker committee of the South west lawyers forum (Egbe Amofin). In a conversation with John Austin Unachukwu, he calls for the amendment of the constitution and other relevant laws to enable technology and international best practices to drive the post lockdown law practice, discusses the forthcoming NBA election and why Egbe Amofin adopted candidates for the election.

In his response on the adoption process, Chief Akintola said, “Well, in the first place, nobody has come to us to say that he is rejecting the adoption of Egbe Amofin. What Egbe did was very transparent, every one of the would be aspirant came before the Egbe Amofin at the meeting to express their desire and I remember that day there were four of them that came forward, they were all unanimous in electing me to chair the committee, nobody raised any form of objection there.”

What happened at the meeting

I was seated in the crowd when I was invited to the high table and all of them expressed their confidence in me and the committee. We had a criteria for the assignment and when one of them requested for the criteria, I directed the Secretary Dr. Akintayo to forward it to him. The issue of zoning was to bring in some trouble but that was the first thing we tackled by adopting the template . Having done that, I remember my brother silks, Dele Adesina ( SAN), Dr. Tunde Ajibade (SAN), Aare Olumuyiwa Akinboro ( SAN) and Awoniyi. Incidentally, the four of them that came forward that day were going to contest for the presidency of the Bar. Two of them were from Ekiti State, while the other two were from Osun State. Our leader, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) didn’t manipulate anybody, he never participated in selecting anybody. I said ok let us select all the Chairmen of the branches to do this job. So the chairmen of the branches were brought out and were mandated to sit under me and screen the candidates.

Conducting the screening exercise

Those chairmen were mandated to go back to go back to their various branches and discuss the candidates in their branches, get feed back and then take the feed back to the secretariat of Egbe Amofin. We had three meetings before we set the criteria which is: You must have a good practice, you must not be just a Bar man, you must be a legal practitioner in the real sense of the word. Must have a viable means of income, must be honest, must not have been convicted of any crime, you must not have a pending case before the disciplinary committee of the Bar. Must not be facing criminal trial in any court any where in the world.

The level of practice must be very good and the candidate must have participated actively on bar activities whether at local, national and international level. Again such a contestant must have geographical spread because Egbe alone cannot make anybody president of the Bar. That was the mandate we gave to the chairmen, we also urged them to contact their counterparts in other zones.

Because me as the chairman in Abeokuta can speak with my counterpart in Zamfara State and say who will you prefer to be our President and get us feed back. That was what we used, so when one of them demanded for the criteria we gave it to him and we went to voting and because of this template which we adopted, we now said let us have Ondo /Ekiti first in this new arrangement. So we presented that to Muyiwa Akinboro (SAN) and Awoniyi and they agreed to step down. We now agreed and said, now that justice is coming to Egbe Amofin let us work together so that next time another zone will produce and not that one state will produce and produce again.

After the Announcement

Mr. Akinboro withdrew formally from the contest and commended us. I remember Femi Falana calling me, saying that we should commend Akinboro and assure him that next time, and I said no, don’t let us jump the gun.

Why? Because, when it comes to Oyo/ Osun, Oyo /Osun and the South west would decide who it is going to be.

So there was no manipulation of any kind, as a matter of fact I didn’t vote as the chairman. It was overwhelming in favour of the person we adopted. It was 27 votes against four votes. And that was without my vote, I didn’t vote as chairman, I remained neutral in the whole process nobody manipulated anybody contrary to the insinuations being peddled here and there. Chief Olanipekun never called any of us to any meeting. I consider it an insult for anybody to insinuate that the committee was manipulated. I consider it an insult for anybody to be saying I was manipulated. Who can manipulate me, Chief Niyi Akintola in this country? I consider it as an insult as a matter of fact, some even went as far as saying that I was trying to protect the interest of my wife because my wife is an High Court Judge and is from Ekiti State. But my wife is from Oyo State.

These are the kind of stories being bandied about. But we are not moved.

When we were discussing the idea of constituting the committee of chairmen to conduct the screening exercise, other would be contestants from other zones were with us, they were all in Ibadan. Different would be contestants from Onitsha, from Lagos, from Warri and other parts of the country were all with us at the meeting. And nobody raised eyebrows, many Senior Advocates of Nigeria from the South west were there, it was very unprecedented because non of our meetings had commanded such high level of attendance. The meeting was attended by the former chariman Body of Benchers, Chief Ajomale, former President of the NBA and Bencher Mrs. Pricilla Kuye, Pa Emmanuel Abiodun, all of them were there so I don’t know where this nonsense emanated from that the meeting was manipulated.

About 31 branch chairmen that took part in the screening exercise. Everybody in the legal profession who knows my relationship with Deacon Dele Adesina will know that we are not the best of friends. In fact in Dele’s acceptance speech he stated that many people asked him why he accepted my chairmanship of the committee. Though we had our differences, I have pushed everything behind and moved on. If for anything, Tunde Ajibade and Muyiwa Akinboro are closer to me than Dele Adesina, they have been my aburo here in Ibadan. Akinboro is from my zone here in Ibadan/Osun zone to which I belong. Tunde Ajibade’s father was my benefactor, he was one of the seniors that trained me here, I have nothing in common with Dele at all. So, for anybody to say that we skewed it in favour of Dele is an insult to me .

Our leaders should not leave the Bar, we need a consummate Bar leader to lead us back our lost glory. The recognition we have in the society came as a result of our nobility.

Chief Niyi Akintola is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, and the chairman of the caretaker committee of the South west lawyers forum (Egbe Amofin)