'Tea Without Sugar' By Adesina Ogunlana

The other day, a gentleman who claimed he had just returned from a Big Game “Safari Trip” to East Africa could be heard regaling listeners with stories of his adventure in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. How the fellow liked to tell those stories.
But no longer. The stories and the excitement dried up the day one of his already-bored-to-death listeners asked him- “On your trip, did you see any lions? The traveller said ‘no’. Then came another question - What of elephants and rhinoceroses? Again the answer was a “No”. Then another question – But surely you saw the buffaloes and the other big cats like leopards, cheetahs?” Once more, the answer was a “No”.
What’s the use of a big game Safari trip when it’s only rats and birds you saw?” quipped the questioner.
I think a similar questioned can be asked the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association, Lagos branch.
On Friday 5th June 2009, the Obi Okwusogu (SAN) led Committee rolled out some “masu-mato” guidelines for the July 2009 elections of the branch.
The Okwusoguan Decree reads thus:
ATTENTION

HUSTINGS IN THIS ELECTION SHALL BE IN THE BEST TRADITION OF THE BAR.
* There shall be no posting of candidates posters anywhere.
* There shall be no smear campaigns against any candidates.
* There shall be no publications either in the print or electronic media by any candidates either by themselves or on their behalf by any person or persons.
* Candidates shall not distribute gifts of any kind or money to procure votes and voters are barred for accepting same.
* Any breach of the foregoing and/or any other dishonourable acts by candidates and their supporters shall lead to disqualification.
In my respectful view, the only reasonable ‘decree’ of the lot is no 4, but then every political animal knows that, that decree will only be observed in the breach.
What do you make of decree no 1? Is that order banning use of posters or the pasting of posters? There are many other ways of using posters without pasting same? And what is the Committee going to do about pasting posters on line?
But by Jove, what is wrong with posters? I guess it is an elections the guys are participating in? How would the electors put a face to the candidates, when their identities are under wraps?
Ordinance 2 forbids smear campaigns. But I ask what is a smear campaign? If a fellow contestant is a proven and established rapscallion or an “unrepentable” till taker, is it wrong to let the electors know the unsavory facts(s)?
Ordinance 3 places a ban on publications about candidates in the press. To me this is to say the least, wonderful! Elections without the press? That is election without public enlightenment. That is tea without sugar. Marriage without sex!
Ordinance 5 is the most pathetic of the orders. According to the ordinance pasting of posters and press publications are all part of what are ‘dishonourable’ in an election of a lawyers’ association.
If you ask me, this is ridiculous and even mischievous. Add, plain unrealistic.
What type of elections is this, where it is a sin, to engage the offices of the press? Is it an election for the dumb and the blind?
Interestingly, the Electoral Committee says the guidelines are to ensure that the elections are conducted in the best traditions of the bar. But which traditions and which bar? Are we talking of the Nigerian Bar Association of the 21st century, where for the past ten years, the number of lawyers produced by the nation are more than all the lawyers produced in the first one hundred years of legal practice in Nigeria?
Or are we talking of the bar, where ancients like Bankole Oki S.A.N, Tunji Gomez S.A.N were but toddlers then and all the number of lawyers in Lagos would not have filled up a BRT Bus?
When you stage a deaf and dumb elections where as it were pigs are bought in the poke, it is reasonable to expect the emergence of a lame and blind leadership.
Elections without campaigns, is, I say again like tea without sugar. NBA Lagos branch, please wake up!