Beyond ballot: Shaping a bar, works for all

By Asiwaju Kunle Kalejaye, SAN

The inaugural address of Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, titled “From the Call to the Cause,” marks a historic turning point for the legal community as she officially assumes office as the 33rd President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). She was sworn in by her predecessor, Afam Osigwe, SAN, at the High Court Complex in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Her leadership, the hiccup surrounding her emergence notwithstanding, represents a historic milestone as the first woman elected to the NBA presidency through a competitive, though highly disputed, national ballot. Her address presents a powerful vision for a “bolder Bar” that actively confronts internal fractures, deep professional disconnects, and economic vulnerabilities.

Central to her message is the core understanding that an association tasked with safeguarding judicial independence and speaking truth to power cannot effectively fulfil its national mandate if it remains internally fragmented.

By focusing on the professional survival of young lawyers and vowing to act decisively against public misconduct, Badejo-Okusanya highlights an urgent reality: institutional strength requires collective solidarity and institutional determination.

Fostering lasting unity within the NBA under this administration demands a deliberate shift from performative governance to deeply institutionalised structural changes that build bridges across classes, factions, generations, and geographical divides.

To bring the NBA together, the new administration must incorporate proactive mechanisms for post-election reconciliation directly into its governance framework. The leadership must deliberately distance itself from divisive rhetoric and provocative nuances.

The competitive nature of Bar elections often leaves behind lingering, bitter factions that can stunt long-term cooperation and slow down progressive policies. By building an “olive branch” initiative that integrates runner-up contestants and their core campaign stakeholders into strategic national committees, the leadership can transform former rivals into active co-creators of the Bar’s future.

Indeed, this strategy, which I have dubbed the “Abraham Lincoln strategy,” remains an eternal clincher.

Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election and famously appointed his chief Republican nomination rivals to key Cabinet positions. Lincoln believed the country faced extreme peril during the crisis leading into the Civil War. He wanted the most capable and influential leaders in his administration, regardless of past personal competition.

He valued robust debate over agreement, using differing viewpoints to make better decisions.

This inclusivity must simultaneously bridge the widening economic and generational gap between senior practitioners and younger advocates. Enforcing standardised minimum remuneration and welfare requirements across all local branches will help reduce the economic alienation felt by younger members.

To make this sustainable, the administration should establish joint mentorship hubs where senior legal practitioners collaborate with tech-savvy young lawyers on modern areas of practice, such as artificial intelligence, data privacy, and digital commerce, turning a generational divide into a symbiotic avenue for mutual professional empowerment.

True unity also requires restoring civil digital discourse through a comprehensive Digital Ethics Enforcement Framework, fulfilling the President’s explicit warning against the breakdown of professional etiquette on social media.

The profession has lost considerable ground due to the digital posture of some members. To achieve this, the NBA can look to established global precedents where foreign bar associations have successfully navigated the complexities of digital misconduct.

For instance, the American Bar Association (ABA) integrated technological expectations into its framework through the Ethics 20/20 Commission, which proposed changes to its Model Rules of Professional Conduct, including Rules 1.6 and 8.4, addressing issues relating to online confidentiality, misleading public statements, and deceptive digital behaviour.

Similarly, the Law Society of England and Wales has updated its practice notes and compliance frameworks concerning offensive online remarks, reinforcing the principle that comments made by a lawyer in a personal capacity can still attract professional consequences where they damage public trust.

By adopting a similar structure, the NBA can expand its own Rules of Professional Conduct into a clear code for online behaviour, utilising its network of regional Ethics and Disciplinary Committees to review flagged misconduct through secure portals.

Backing this framework with transparent disciplinary procedures and a tiered system of sanctions will allow the NBA to decisively address cyberbullying and transition professional disputes into mediated internal forums rather than chaotic public platforms.

This digital accountability should be reinforced by introducing mandatory continuing legal education (CLE) modules on digital etiquette, ensuring that practitioners maintain technological and behavioural competence.

Immediately, the NBA must dismantle the persistent perception that it is a “Lagos-Abuja-centric” organisation. Actively decentralising national activities, rotating National Executive Council (NEC) meetings across various geopolitical zones, and providing direct financial and technical resources to smaller and rural branches will make every lawyer feel valued regardless of geography.

Ultimately, by integrating these targeted, practical strategies and internationally proven ethical standards into the foundational ideals of her inaugural address, the administration can successfully unite its members and establish a cohesive, resilient front capable of defending the rule of law across Nigeria.

The new administration must pursue a deliberate policy towards attracting many docile members back into its fold.

If the new administration must know, the opaque electoral processes that have dogged the Association in recent history have adversely affected the morale of a significant number of silent members of the Association.

Chief Yomi Alliyu graphically stated the disturbing position when he posited in an opinion piece that: “The NBA has been hijacked by political lawyers to the disaffection of real practitioners of law. Elections from 2016 or so via e-voting had been manipulated to favour members of this class.”

The new administration must therefore consciously pursue reconciliatory steps that rein in all members. As of now, the silent class war must end for the NBA to achieve its full potential.

I was sorely tempted to headline this piece: “Nigerian Bar Association: The Road to Kigali.” I refrained because I still see a silver lining that this new administration can latch on to in order to save the NBA from itself.

The “road to Kigali” serves as a grim warning about the risk of total institutional fracture, polarisation, and potential irrelevance. If proactive steps are not taken to unify and reform the body, it faces the danger of fracturing into competing, ethnicised, or regionalised professional factions, effectively ending the era of a single, unified voice for the Nigerian Bar.

The 1992 Port Harcourt Conference Crisis was a definitive moment that brought the NBA to the brink of permanent destruction.

Today, unless we play the ostrich, the cries of war are abroad, but the present leadership could etch their names in gold if the NBA is consciously, deliberately, and clinically steered away from self-implosion.

Their job is cut out for them. Failure to seize the moment may end up placing us all on the road to Kigali.

Kalejaye, SAN, Eagle 102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu