By Suleiman Anyalewechi
The Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, has opted out of Port Harcourt ,the Rivers State Capital, for its 2025 Annual General Conference.
The NBA on Thursday night April 10, 2025, announced Enugu, the Capital of Enugu State as the new venue for the conference.
A statement jointly signed by Mazi Afam Osigwe, Dr Mobolaji Ojibara, and Emeka Obegolu, President ,General Secretary ,and Chairman AGCPC respectively, stated that the decision to relocate the Conference out of Port Harcourt, was informed by its position on the subsisting State of Emergency in Rivers State.
It would be recalled that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on March 18, 2025 appointed a Sole Administrator to oversee the affairs of the State for an initial period of six months after suspending the duly elected Governor, his Deputy and the State Lawmakers.
However, the decision has been greeted by widespread condemnation, with the NBA among the strongest voices.
The leadership of the umbrella body of legal practitioners as well as many of its prominent members have lampooned the State of emergency as unconstitutional, and a gross abuse of rule of law and democracy.
The body has vowed never to recognize the emergency contraption, nor confer undue legitimacy on it.
The cancelation of Port Harcourt as the host of the 2025 Annual Conference, the NBA maintained, is part of its protestation against the development in Rivers State.
According to the NBA, while there was an unprecedented excitement among members over the choice of Port Harcourt as the venue for the Conference as clearly demonstrated by the high level of enthusiasm expressed, as well as the large number of registration by practitioners, the body, however, regretted that the presence of a Military Administrator in the governance space of Rivers will no longer permit the holding of the Conference in the State.
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