NBA's partisan, Obidient reactions to national issues
Last Friday, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) issued a statement “deprecating the disturbing involvement by lawyers and courts in the internal affairs of political parties despite the clear provisions of
Last Friday, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) issued a statement “deprecating the disturbing involvement by lawyers and courts in the internal affairs of political parties despite the clear provisions of the Electoral Act, 2026.” Signed by the president of the association, Afam Osigwe, the statement insists that Section 83 of the Act, which says that “No court in Nigeria shall entertain jurisdiction over any suit or matter pertaining to the internal affairs of a political party,” precludes any such involvement. The statement was a hasty and angry broadside to lawyers and judges to stay away from litigating or judging matters concerning the internal affairs of political parties. But that NBA warning itself did not come from the blue; it was probably a reaction to the ongoing crisis in the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the litigation of that crisis, and the interim measure taken by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to delist the caretaker executives of the ADC, the darling party of the opposition coalition.
Every angry paragraph of the NBA statement, however, aligns with the thinking and public statements of the group that enacted the takeover of the ADC in the most uncoordinated and careless manner, to wit, the former vice president Atiku Abubakar's crowd, the Obidient warriors that sallied forth from former Anambra governor Peter Obi's uprooted camp, and other dispossessed groups seeking shelter from the All Progressives Congress (APC) tsunami that saw about 10 governors abandoning their camps to take refuge in the ruling party. Mr Osigwe built his entire denunciations on one plank: Section 83(5) and (6) of the Electoral Act 2026. He argues that, according to the provisions of the Act, “Not only are courts denied jurisdiction to entertain any matter pertaining to the internal affairs of a political party, but they are also precluded from granting any interim or interlocutory injunction even where any action has been brought in violation of the Act.” The provision Mr Osigwe anchored his argument on was absent from the Electoral Act 2022. It was, therefore, clear that once this amendment came to force this year, it was bound to be tested in the courts.
The first test relates to whether the Electoral Act 2026 can apply to a case filed and commenced in 2025 or any other time preceding the enactment of the legislation. It is trite law that a person cannot be convicted for an offence that is not explicitly written down in any statute. This principle was decided in the case of Aoko v Fagbemi and is expressed in the Latin maxim nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege (No crime, no punishment without law). Indeed, this is codified under criminal law in Sections 4(9), 36(8) and (12) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). Nevertheless, it is applicable as a legal procedure even under civil matters that laws are not retroactive. Civil liability must be grounded in law. Laws are also not ex post facto. If a law, such as the Electoral Act 2026, was enacted to take effect from 2026, it is unclear how anyone expects to use the sections newly added to it to take effect in a case that was filed and commenced in 2025, even before the punitive Section 83(5) and (6)was introduced. Therefore, no liability, whether criminal or penal in nature, can arise except where the conduct and its consequence are clearly prescribed by written law.
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When Mr Osigwe goes on to suggest that “Members of the Bar are reminded that they are Ministers in the Temple of Justice and not political agents seeking judicial endorsement of partisan objectives,” and that “The filing of actions intended to draw courts into internal political party disputes, particularly where jurisdiction is expressly excluded, constitutes an abuse of court process and a violation of professional responsibility,” it is clear he was simply being legalistic. As president of the NBA, meaning that he temporarily embodies the principles, practices and the intellectual depth of the association, he is expected to be dialectical and capable of raising posers and issues that interrogate Section 83 of the Act. Assuming the ADC case was not litigated under the old Act, and assuming the new Act was relevant to the ongoing dispute, does the ouster provision not imply injustice to those who suffered grave injuries in the party when a group of people barged their way into the party, secured the buy-in of a few colluding or even conniving executives of the party, and went on to unfairly displace certain members of the executives in violation of the rules and constitution of the party itself? Because the Atiku-Obidient faction of the party thinks no injuries had been done does not mean that NBA cannot ask relevant questions about the purport of that provision and its power to aggravate great wrongs.
It is even more dispiriting that the NBA seeks to take the rights of litigants away simply because both the association and Section 83 think no disaffected person within a party has the right to fight injustice. According to Mr Osigwe, “Lawyers who deliberately file actions aimed at procuring judicial interference in intra-party affairs, or who seek ex parte or interlocutory orders in clear violation of statutory provisions, risk facing disciplinary proceedings. We will not hesitate to present petitions before the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) against any Legal Practitioner found to be engaging in such conduct. This will be pursued decisively to serve as a deterrent and to preserve the sanctity of the judicial process.” Why does the NBA wish to be the judge over a matter only the courts can pronounce on? Let the courts, not the NBA, determine whether a litigant and his counsel are engaged in exercises in futility, and if found to have wasted the time of the court, let them be slammed with costs. The NBA is not a school prefect, nor are party constitutions superfluous.
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As part of its recommendation in curbing what it describes as litigious excesses, the NBA “calls on the National Judicial Council to make regulations that will sanction any judge who knowingly assumes jurisdiction in matters clearly barred by law, grants orders in respect of intra-party disputes in violation of statutory provisions, or lends the authority of the court to partisan political maneuvering.” The NBA worries about courts lending themselves to partisan bickering. On the ADC suit, it is precisely the NBA that is unethically lending itself to 'partisan political manoeuvering' because of its disguised anger over the INEC response to the Court of Appeal decision. And when the NBA gave INEC the unsolicited advice to disregard a court ruling, no matter how perverse the association thinks that ruling is, it invites judicial anarchy. Shifting his gaze to INEC, Mr Osigwe calls on the INEC chairman to “appreciate the constitutional implications of these developments…and ensure that his actions reflect independence, fairness, and strict adherence to democratic norms.” There is nothing the INEC chairman has done so far in respect of the ADC case that detracts from fairness, independence, or adherence to democratic norms. On the contrary, it is Mr Osigwe who has failed to disguise his partisanship or mitigate the atrocious direction he has led the NBA, culminating in last year's bewildering climax during the 2025 NBA 'Stand out, Stand tall' annual conference that nevertheless stood out for standing short.
