'Agbako-Bar' By Adesina Ogunlana

Vol 8 No 1 24th September 2007

THE LEARNED SQUIB


The Learned Squib by Adesina Ogunlana www.squibanticorruption.com.

AGBAKO-BAR

Were you at Ilorin? In the last week of August 2007? For the lawyers’ conference? Oh, you were not there? My, my, you were not there! Really?
I got you there. You see, if you missed the 2007 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Conference, you were really lucky. Because, all what you missed either by the whiskers or by a mile was “plenty, plenty nonsense,” or as Fela would put it, “babanla nonsense.”

Soon after surviving the Ilorin conference, I came across reports in some newspapers claiming that the said ‘suffer, suffer’ conference was “the best ever.” I couldn’t help but grimace, even sorrow at such gross mendacity. If, the Ilorin conference was the best ever NBA conference then be assured that the snail is the fastest animal in the world.

I know many ‘Squibbers’ have been on the look out for our reports of the Ilorin conference. But since in our candid opinion it was nothing to write home about, why bother to write it? Take it from me, the Ilorin conference was a disaster, with most participants seriously shortchanged.
Sympathisers of the administration of Olisa ‘The Stranger Who Became King’ Agbakoba have played down the awful mess of insufficient accommodation for conferees and dearth of conference materials, as if they were mere trifles while playing up the attendance of President Umaru Yar’Adua at the opening session of the conference as a big deal.

But to me, Yar’Adua’s presence was more of a minus than a plus for the Nigerian Bar Association. Of course, some individuals gained by the president’s attendance but certainly not the NBA. I believe the NBA contradicted itself by honouring Yar’Adua with an invitation to her conference. Of course, the nation’s president did not need to be at the conference and was he not the chief beneficiary of an election that the NBA had strongly dismissed as unacceptable and actually ordered a boycott on?

Of course, the president’s presence meant that the opening ceremony was turned into a carnival-rally of his political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). At the event, party faithfuls took over the venue and at least half of the lawyers present were shut out of the hall. What a waste of time!
The acute shortage of decent accommodation forced many conferees to sleep in untoward places like cars, balconies and lounges of hotels. Of course, after a day or two of humiliating non-shelter, many conferees headed back home. As the Yoruba aptly put it: “Bi iwaju o ba se lo, eyin a sa se lo” (when a journey turns awry, at least the traveler can beat a retreat).

It was a sad little smile that played on my lips when I heard Agbakoba claim that the NBA was only expecting about three or four thousand conferees to turn up at the Ilorin conference because “it was not an election year.”

What a lame excuse! If true, then it is proof of a poor sense of imagination and judgment. Any veteran bar person would know that Ilorin 2007 would attract quite a huge turn-out of lawyers simply by the sheer fact of her advantageous geographical location, being very near the densely populated (lawyer wise) southwestern and eastern parts of the country.
Of course, ab initio, Ilorin should not have been selected to host the conference. Objective persons would know that the two other bidders for the hosting of the conference, Ikeja and Kaduna, are better in terms of accommodation capacity than Ilorin but the NBA leadership gave the hosting chance to Ilorin, for obvious selfish reasons – to please Lawal Rabana, the General Secretary of the Association who hails from Ilorin.

Another terrible fact of the Ilorin conference was the absence of conference materials. Up till now, only a few conferees have a complete conference pack of the materials. What the majority managed to get were empty conference bags, of a high quality, but empty nonetheless.

The struggle to get conference materials was tough, rough, and undignifying for many as they had to engage in rugby like contests, kicking, shoving, grunting, pushing and elbowing one another in frantic struggles to lay hands on the papers.
It is on record that Nurudeen Ogbara Esq., a staunch Agbakobaist in the 2006 elections who witnessed one of the many ugly struggles for conference materials chased away a Squib photographer from recording the “sad scramble” on film. According to Ogbara, he acted in defence of the NBA’s image. Wonderful! Things were never this bad at NBA conferences; that conferees had to fight to get conference materials.

Some noises have also been made of the provision of “free lunches” to conferees at the conference. What free lunches? Registered conferees remember only too well that they paid no less than five thousand naira each; more than the usual conference fees they normally pay. And it is a fact that not all conferees got to eat of Agbakoba’s “free lunch.” There is no free lunch anywhere, least of all in the Agbako-bar.

I don’t want to say anything much about the engagement of the “Events Manager” for the conference other than; victims of the Ilorin conference have him or her to thank for at least 70% of their misery. That Events Manager and his engagers should be probed.
But for the assistance of the Local Organising Committee of the Ilorin branch which was at first spurned, the situation would have been much worse.

In spite of the great disappointment that Ilorin turned out to be, I beg to report that the ‘Tigers,’ one of the few large cohesive groups there, managed to have fun. Their party on the 30th August 2007 was one of the wonders of the conference. The live band that performed at the party drove away the rheumatism of some aging tigers and tigresses with their Ilorin flavoured “dadakuwada” music which compelled gyrations from merry Tigers as well as, wait for this, naira spraying.

In all, Ilorin will remain, at least for me, another example of how the inadequacies of know-it-all sophisticates are exposed in the cold and harsh terrain of practical realities.
I ask, where are the re-branders of this world?
One hopes NBA Conference 2008 will not be a repeat of the Ilorin 2007 fiasco. Amen.

Please see www.squiblogg.blogspot.com for the week’s judiciary gist.
(Look out for latest Learned Squib article and diary this week).