By Ayo Kehinde
Gov el-Rufai of Kaduna State
Rising from an emergency meeting held to douse tension in its ranks, the executive of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, has withdrawn the invitation extended to Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna state as keynote speaker at its 60th anniversary annual conference.
The association took the decision at its just concluded National Executive Committee meeting.
In a face saving statement, the NBA explained that it took the decision to enable the governor to have more time to focus on the killings in Southern part of Kaduna State.
Bu in actuality, the sudden decision was taken to avert a possible split in the association, which just barely managed to stave –off unrest arising from allegations that its recent national election was marred by fraud.
Several Nigerian lawyers had in the past days had registered their discontent over the decision of the leadership of the NBA to include Governor el-Rufai as a guest speaker in the conference.
The lawyers, in an August 9 letter titled Request to Withdraw the Offer of Platform At The 2020 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association to Malam Nasri-el Rufai, which was signed by the duo of Silas Joseph Onu and Auta Nyada, listed what they considered the ‘sins’ of the governor to warrant their call for the withdrawal of the NBA invitation.
According to them, Kaduna, under, el-rufai’s government, “is the most dangerous state in Nigeria”, quoting a civil monitoring body, Civic Media Lab, adding that “as at today, Southern Kaduna is the most active site of massacres and mass atrocities in Nigeria. Other areas they looked into was el-rufai’s 2019 pre-election threat that election monitors will leave the country” in body bags”, and alleged threat to lives of critics, even by members of his family.
