NBA President, Usoro, explains why El-Rufai was dis-invited for its conference, apologises

The President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Paul Usoro (SAN) has explained why the body dis-invited Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai for its 2020 annual conference.

He said that after the invitation of the governor was kicked against by some people, that the BAR National Executive Committee (NEC) put the matter to a vote during its teleconference meeting and those against the invitation won the argument.

Usoro apologised to the governor for the inconveniences the development might have caused him, saying that what happened was devoid of any ethnic or religious connotation.

Controversies have continued to trail the NBA’s withdrawal of its invitation to El-Rufai as one of the speakers for its coming annual conference.

Already, the Jigawa and Bauchi chapters of the NBA had threatened to boycott the conference if the action against El-Rufai was not revised.

READ ALSO: Like Jigawa, Bauchi NBA threatens to boycott conference over El-Rufai

However, in a letter dated Friday August 21 and addressed to Asishana Okauru, director-general of Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), the NBA national president, Usoro said he took responsibility “for the unintended embarrassment and tender my regrets and apologies.”

He stated in the letter, “As I also explained to you, the statutory membership of NEC is made up of all past presidents and general secretaries and 3 (three) members each from each of our 125 branches. There are also about 120 co-opted members.

“NEC was deliberately made that large by the framers of the Association’s Constitution to accommodate all shades of opinion and thoughts.

“As I further mentioned to you during our teleconference, the invitation of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai was brought up by NEC members at yesterday’s (Thursday’s) meeting when the TCCP’s arrangements for the 2020 AGC was placed on the agenda for discussions and the preponderance of opinion was that His Excellency should be dis-invited.

“There was indeed a motion that was moved and seconded to that effect. Those who spoke in favor of his attendance, including me, were in the minority. I was personally placed in a very difficult and problematic position.”

Noting there was nothing he or the conference planning committee could do over the decision, Usoro added:

“Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is a friend that I have known as long ago as the early 1980s and we do have some other very close mutual friends. And yet, I am bound, as an elected President of the NBA, by decisions and directives of NEC to whom I am answerable in my official capacity.

“NEC merely made a judgment that it was not in the best interest of the Association to be engulfed in the controversy that trailed the invitation of Mallam el-Rufai for the Conference and that it was best if the safety-valve of dis-inviting the governor was applied.

“NEC’s decision yesterday had no ethnic or religious coloration or connotation howsoever and whatsoever. In discussing the issue at NEC, nobody talked about religion or ethnicity.”

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