The national executive council of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has defended the association’s president Olumide Akpata in the wake of criticism from a senior Advocate Adegboyega Awomolo for being “immature”.
Awomolo, who is the chairman of the body of senior advocates of Nigeria, had criticised Akpata for raising certain issues in his speech at a ceremony organised by the Supreme Court on December 8, 2021, to mark the beginning of the 2021/2022 legal year and the swearing-in of 72 new senior advocates.
It was gathered that Awomolo emailed the secretary of the body of benchers and copied over 100 members of the body, describing Akpata’s statement as “very uncouth and sarcastic… unkind and uncharitable… smacked of immaturity and insulting.”
However, in a communiqué issued at the end of its quarterly meeting in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on December 16, 2021, the NBA NEC passed a vote of confidence in Akpata, saying he had so far led the association well and “has completely changed the NBA narrative and that perception of the association in the eyes of the public has been positively altered.”
The communiqué said the NBA NEC “frowned on and unequivocally condemned the unwarranted attack on the president of the NBA by Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN and declared that the President of the NBA, Olumide Akpata, has the total support of all members of the association in the discharge of their collective mandate.”
