Rep asks NBA to refund "hosting rights" N300m to Rivers

A member of the House of Representatives, Solomon Bob, has asked the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to return the N300 million paid to it by the Rivers State Government as hosting rights for the association’s 2025 Annual General Conference.

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Mr Bob, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) representing Abua/Odual and Ahoada East federal constituency of Rivers State, said this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

He frowned at NBA’s refusal to return the money after moving the conference from Port Harcourt to Enugu.

The federal lawmaker urged the Rivers Administrator, Ibok-Ete Ibas, to use every constitutional means to retrieve the money from the professional body of lawyers in Nigeria.

The N300 million was reportedly authorised by the suspended governor of Rivers State, Siminilayi Fubara, prior to federal government’s declaration of a state of emergency in the state due to a protracted political crisis.

The crisis pitted Mr Fubara against his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, who is now a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

In March, President Bola Tinubu suspended Mr Fubara and members of the State House of Assembly from office.

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The president also appointed Mr Ibas, a retired chief of naval staff, as the sole administrator for the state for an initial period of six months.

The appointment was later ratified by both chambers of the National Assembly in accordance with Section 305(2) of the Nigerian Constitution.

The NBA, however, condemned the emergency declaration and the appointment of Mr Ibas, with the arguement that it was unconstitutional.

The association maintained that President Tinubu lacked the authority to remove an elected governor from office and threatened that it would relocate its annual conference earlier scheduled for Port Harcourt to Enugu State.

In response, Mr Ibas requested that the money paid as hosting rights for the conference should be refunded if NBA insists on relocating the annual conference.

The NBA, however, insisted that it would proceed with relocating its annual conference and would not refund the N300 million because it was a “gift” from the previous administration.

“Unreasonable gift”

Mr Bob, a former special adviser to Mr Wike, alleged that the money was a misappropriated public fund that must be recovered.

He said the refusal to refund the money was “unreasonable” and a “proof that they (NBA) were engaged in a relationship of compromise with Fubara”.

“Having witnessed Fubara’s dangerous and incomparable incompetence first-hand, and the embarrassing diminution his actions have exposed my state to, I consider the statement arrogant and a gratuitous insult.

“The NBA had got itself entangled in a sweetheart deal with Fubara, a quid pro quo, and it was set to use the Port Harcourt conference to whitewash the worst misgovernment of any state in Nigeria,” he said.

The lawmaker described NBA’s action as “rank hypocrisy and insincerity because it stood idly by without a whimper when suspended governor Siminilayi Fubara exhibited the type of crass lawlessness and wanton irresponsibility never before seen in any state in Nigeria.”

Justification for state of emergency

Mr Bob justified the state of emergency, arguing that NBA lacked the legal authority to challenge the president’s powers under Section 305 of the Nigerian Constitution.

“The NBA cannot circumscribe or amend the clear untrammelled and discretionary powers granted the President by Section 305 of the constitution. Neither is the NBA in a position to interpret or determine what measures qualify as extraordinary – which the President is required to adopt under the same section.

“The NBA does not have the jurisdictional competence or ethical example to be a barometer for measuring democracy and constitutionalism,” he said.