NBA 1992 Port-Harcourt Conference Crisis: Have Lawyers Learnt from History? – By Chief Richard Ahonaruogho

Former Country Representative of the International Bar Association (IBA) and Secretary of the Committee of Branch Chairmen and Secretaries that returned the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to national life after the NBA Port-Harcourt Conference crises of 1992, Chief Richard Oma Ahonaruogho, examines the state of the Bar during the dark days of the Port-Harcourt crises, matters connected therewith and whether lawyers are learning from history or repeating it.

Part One – A Backward Glance

For some time now, I have toyed with the idea of writing about the inconclusive Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Conference held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State in 1992 and its aftermath, but kept postponing it for some inexplicable reason. However, recent events in the NBA have compelled me to write about this period in the life of the association being a very active participant as a Bar activist and the Secretary of the Committee of Chairmen and Secretaries that helped to midwife the return of the NBA at the national level and successfully handed over to an elected body of officials in August, 1998.

The present intervention is therefore made with a huge sense of responsibility, borne out of the firm conviction that it is imperative to give as accurate an account as possible of those ‘dark days’ before, during and in the aftermath of the Conference which sharply divided the Bar like nothing else before – nor since. This is more so as some of the active players at the Bar today were not in the profession twenty eight years ago. Calls to dismember the Bar have been growing louder, hence my appeal for caution.

I contested for the Office of Assistant Secretary General of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) at the said Conference. At that time, elections into the Executive Committee of the NBA were conducted annually and an incumbent could re-contest for the same Office for a further term of one year only. The incumbent President of the Association at the time, Chief Clement Obiora Akpamgbo SAN was elected at the Owerri Conference in 1991 and was to serve till 1992. However, shortly after his election, he was appointed as the Honourable Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Federation (HAGF). In taking up that appointment, Chief Akpamgbo merely followed the example of Prince Bola Ajibola (as he then was) who became Attorney-General of the Federation in 1985, shortly after his election as NBA President in 1984. Accordingly, it fell to Mr. Ebele Nwokoye, the then first Vice-President of the NBA, to serve out the term of Prince Bola Ajibola as President of the NBA. Mr. Nwokoye was elected President in his own right and served first from 1985 to 1986, and again – following his re-election – from 1986 to 1987. In the same vein, Chief (Mrs.) Priscilla Kuye, as the then first Vice-President served out the term of Chief Akpamgbo SAN as President of the NBA following his move to the Government, as aforesaid. Just like Mr. Nwokoye, she contested for the Presidency, in her own right, at the 1992 Port-Harcourt Conference, which however, was not to be in circumstances that I shall presently outline.

Prior to the Conference, there were serious unresolved issues in the NBA arising from the tenure of Mr. Charles Idehen as President of the Association, and even before then. Given the previous successive appointments of Prince Judge Bola Ajibola SAN and Chief Clement Obiora Akpamgbo SAN by the Government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida as the Honourable Attorney General of the Federal (HAGF) and Minister of Justice, as well as the then ongoing transition to civilian rule programme which started in 1989 with the appointment of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) headed by Professor Humphrey Nwosu, the stakes for the Office of the President of the NBA were very high. These issues came to a head at the Port-Harcourt Conference in 1992; the contestants for the Presidency were Chief (Mrs.) Priscilla Kuye – who was the acting President of the NBA, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, Mr. Segun Onakoya and Mr. Kanmi Ishola Osobu (Peoples’ Law). At the Conference rumours were rife that certain groups had entered the Conference venue with hired thugs, disguised as Lawyers, with the alleged aim of achieving a pre-determined outcome at the elections. In other words, for the first time in the history of the NBA, election into the Office of the President of the NBA had taken a decidedly political hue in the context of the larger Nigerian polity. Accordingly, the ensuing campaign was tenser than ever, to put it mildly.

To start with, accreditation of voters at the election was delayed and the Executive Committee which ought to have been dissolved preparatory to the elections was not dissolved. When Chief Gani Fawehinmi (as he then was) was recognized to address the Conference, the microphone was seized from him. In the ensuing confusion, Chief (Mrs.) Priscilla Kuye was forced to adjourn the election sine die when she was served with an interim injunction issued by a Port-Harcourt High Court which ordered the suspension of the election. It marked the first time that an election would be stopped on the Orders of a Court of law – but it would not be the last. It also threw the NBA – at least its national body – into a state of abeyance, which defied all efforts at resuscitating it until the Federal Government interned by promulgating the Legal Practitioners (Amendment) Decree No. 21 of 1993.

This statute a constituted a body – christened the Caretaker Committee of the Body of Benchers under the Chairmanship of Chief Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams SAN; (hereinafter referred to as the Chief FRA Williams’ Committee), mandate was to manage the affairs of the NBA. The Decree specifically amended the Legal Practitioners Act by introducing a new Section 23A therein; this provision ousted the right of “any person to commence or maintain an action or any legal proceedings whatsoever relating to, connected with or arising from (a) the management of the affairs of the Association; or (b) the exercise or preparation by the Body of Benchers for the exercise of the powers conferred upon it by this Act”.

However, this (ouster clause) did not deter a legal challenge to Chief FRA Williams’ Committee championed by the Ikeja Branch of the Association, which had Chief Samuel Olasupo Morohundiya as its founding Chairman, with Chief Olu Akintunde and 20 others as the arrow-heads. The suit was heard by Honourable Justice O. O. Obadina (as he then was), who, on Thursday 10th June, 1993, granted an interim injunction restraining the Respondents from interfering with the internal affairs of the NBA, amongst other reliefs. The appeal by Chief Williams’ Committee (reported as WILLIAMS vs. AKINTUNDE (1995) 3 NWLR 101), was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, 20th September, 1994. In the aftermath of this decision, the Government, once again, amended the Legal Practitioners Act, while Chief FRA Williams SAN retained his position as the Chairman of the said Committee. In response, the Ikeja Branch of the Association passed yet another Resolution condemning the move. In my capacity as a candidate in the botched 1992 elections, I instituted a legal action – RICHARD OMA AHONARUOGHO vs. CHIEF F.R.A. WILLIAMS SAN AND OTHERS (FOR HIMSELF AND ON BEHALF OF THE BODY OF BENCHERS CARETAKER COMMITTEE OF THE NBA) at the Ikeja Judicial Division of the High Court of Justice, before Honourable Justice Caroline Olufawo. It was successful, as the court granted an interim injunction against the Defendants, on the ground that there was a subsisting injunction against Chief FRA Williams’ Committee issued in Chief Akintunde’s case as aforesaid. Chief FRA Williams SAN unsuccessfully attempted to upturn the injunction.

During the pendency of the suit, I was elected as the Secretary of the Ikeja Branch of the Association. With the active support of the Branch Chairman, Mr. Oladosu Ogunniyi, a perfect gentleman, the Ikeja Branch championed calls for the resuscitation of the NBA, using the Branches as a springboard. At great personal cost, I visited virtually all the 88 Branches of the Association, soliciting their support for the project. I recall that this was at a time of severe fuel scarcity. I sometime got to my destination at 1.00am driving. I often ran out of money and my car broke down numerous times. I had to remain in far-long locations for days waiting for Mojisola, my wife to get money to me through First Bank money transfer which could take up to 3 days!

At about the same time, the Adamawa Branch of the NBA also passed a resolution championed by Alhaji Murtala Aminu OFR, the Galadima of Adamawa, calling for a resolution of the NBA crisis. Mr. Oladosu Ogunniyi, Chairman of the NBA Ikeja Branch then wrote letters inviting all the Chairmen and Secretaries of 88 Branches of the NBA, to a meeting at the NBA Ikeja Branch Bar Centre. The meeting which was held in 1996 was summoned to reflect, discuss, consider, and deliberate on a way to resuscitate the NBA.

In the course of the said meeting (in 1996), Mrs. Yargata Nimpar (as she then was, (now a Honourable Justice of the Court of Appeal), who was then the Chairperson of the Jos Branch of the Association, moved a Motion to convert the meeting into a meeting of the “Committee of Chairmen and Secretaries of the Nigerian Bar Association”. The motion was carried, upon which Chief Solomon Adegboyega Awomolo SAN, emerged as the Chairman of the newly-formed Committee, with my humble self, Richard Oma Ahonaruogho, as the Committee Secretary. Although we were not given a time-frame, our mandate was clear – to revive the NBA.

The attendance at the funeral, in 1996, of Mr. Kanmi Ishola Osobu (Peoples’ Law) – one of the contestants at the aborted Presidential elections in the Port-Harcourt Conference 4 years earlier – was an early indication that Lawyers, across all the divides and tendencies within the NBA, were tired of the prevailing status quo, and earnestly yearned for a re-united Bar. However, just as our Committee was getting down to its task, Mr. Charles Idehen, a Past President of the NBA lost his wife, Mrs. Faith Idehen on 21st December, 1996. Her own funeral, in Benin, on 21st January, 1997, also attracted virtually all the 88 Branch Chairmen of the Association and the two main dramatis personae in the NBA crisis at the time – Chief (Mrs.) Priscilla Kuye and Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu.

However, the ‘battle’ was far from over, as two prominent members of the Lagos Branch of the NBA, Emeka Celestine Nwosu and Fred Agbeyegbe as Plaintiffs instituted an action against “(1) Chief F. R. A. Williams (SAN), (2) Mrs. Hairat Aderinsola Balogun (For themselves and the Body of the Benchers), (3) Chief B. O. Benson, (4) Chief Debo Akande SAN (For themselves and Trustees of the Nigerian Bar Association). (5) Chief (Mrs.) P. O. Kuye, (6) Prince Adesuyi Olateru-Olagbegi (For themselves and the Nigerian Bar Association), (7) Sir Emmanuel Ofulue, (8) Oladosu Ogunniyi. (9) Chief S. A. Awomolo SAN, (10) Richard O. Ahonaruogho and (11) Attorney General of the Federation (For themselves and the Committee of Chairmen and Secretaries of Nigerian Bar Association)”.

Thus, from being a Plaintiff in one suit, I became a Defendant in another in the good company of all those listed therein and was greatly comforted that Chief F.R.A. Williams SAN and I were on the same side as Defendants!  Some aspects of the case went up to the Court of Appeal and is reported as CHIEF F. R. A. WILLIAMS SAN & 10 OTHERS vs. EMEKA CELESTINE NWOSU & ANOTHER (2000) 9 NWLR Part 671 Page 215.