Mr. Rafiu Balogun is a former chairman, Ilorin branch of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA). He bares his mind on the crisis rocking the Ilorin branch of the association especially on the impeachment notice served on his successor, Mr. Mobolaji Ojibara and concluded that there was a need for Ojibara to clear himself of the series of alleged corrupt practices and abuse of office preferred against him. BIODUN OYELEYE met him.

You have been accused of being the brain behind the recent crisis in the NBA; that you refused to subject the account of your administration for auditing and when you were disqualified from contesting at the national level you came back with impeachment move against the current chairman?

It is funny. I am surprised that a leader of the Bar could go on this way when he knows the truth. I don't know why some of them are being economical with the truth. The audit committee that was set up was manipulated by the chairman and one or two of his cohorts who are hell bent on destroying our credibility because in the history of the Bar in Ilorin here, with due respect, there is no administration that can match our own.

The records of our achievement are there for everyone to see. I am surprised that he is saying I am the one supporting the move. Now at our general meeting of 18th of April, the one we had at the Chief Judge's court, the secretary, Mr Akande rose up at that meeting; actually he didn't sit with the EXCO, he sat with the congress.

He rose up and said that the chairman is guilty of financial recklessness, abuse of office and unguarded statement. That is coming from his secretary and that is part of the ground of impeachment. Is that Balogun again? He should just leave me alone. This is what happened: after our tenure when we submitted our annual reports and accounts which I am going to show you. We set out everything clearly, no issue at all.

It was at the point of the report being adopted at the swearing in of the new EXCO that Mr. Salman Jawondo, his godfather raised up his hands that we must not adopt this report that day because the time was far spent. The tradition is that we must adopt it but because we didn't know they had their own plans elsewhere, I said no problem; that we could adopt it at the next general meeting which is the inaugural meeting of the Ojibara administration.

But the day we were supposed to do that, Jawondo again raised an issue that the report had not been audited and therefore should not be adopted. I was surprised. Meanwhile Ojibara began to read out a list of names of a committee on that. One of the elders said no, this is not the practice; how can you appoint a committee for us to audit the report? There and then Jawondon raised his hands again and nominated Dr. Adams whose name had earlier been read out by Ojibara, to head the committee.

Thereafter they began to jubilate that they were going to deal with me. The secretary to that committee is in the same office with Dr. Adams. They wrote to me asking for records of the administration. I asked them to contact the secretary because as chairman I don't keep records. Let them write to all secretaries and financial secretary.

They wrote and those people responded. But the committee didn't work at all. The chairman alone was looking at our record and was filing report because he was detailed to indict me because of my ambition because the practice in those days is that your chairman must recommend you, to say that you are in good standing otherwise you will not be allowed to contest. So, the plan was that they would use the report against me; they were going to use two reports; the audit and the one on the plaque we were given at the end of our tenure which is a normal thing but which they made to become an issue and set up another committee to probe.

The audit committee was not working but they were preparing report. We have somebody there who felt it was all unfair and spoke out against what they were doing. We now wrote them to hands off because we have seen that in law that they don’t even have what it takes to audit and account; it is the job of professional accountants.

We also said we have seen that they are not going to be fair to us because I had issues with the chairman of the committee, Dr. Adams because I didn't allow him to contest when I was secretary as he was not qualified. But they pocketed our letter whereas they ought to refer the letter to the congress; that we are complaining. We are lawyers and I am surprised that they could keep that letter without referring it to the congress.

We had no option again but to go to court but before doing that we went to our elders; we wrote to them to let them know what was brewing and asked for their intervention that we have served so well that we don't deserve to be humiliated. It was my administration that constituted the Council of Elders and we put it in the bye-law. We wrote to them and we even talked with some of them. But nothing was done and so we had to go to court. In court, we said that we are not going to get fair hearing from the committee and that the court should mandate the association to constitute an independent auditor from outside who will do the auditing.

So, we are not saying our accounts should not be audited even though the two past administrations headed by Jawondo and Akanbi, their reports were never audited. We are on trust; we are lawyers and if lawyers speak from the Bar there is no need to doubt them, we are not used to this kind of thing; we operate on trust.

So why then is this happening?

Vendetta. I contested with Ojibara on two occasions and as God would have it I defeated him both as secretary and chairman and he now said I didn't support him during this time when he won that I was supporting my Vice Chairman, Dr. Abikan.

That was my offence because the elders had come into the matter earlier and they asked him why he was doing what he was doing and he said it was because I did not support him or something else. Nothing to say other than that and that is why I say it is vendetta or envy because they are marvelled at what we have achieved so far.

When I started they said I was too young to do it but when we started to achieve so much they were marvelled and they now accuse me that I want to turn myself into Saraki of NBA but I tell them it is because I am popular and people like my style.

But you were said to have incurred debt on the Bar centre?

They are not being fair to me. We commenced this project with funds we sourced from our areas and I put in my own N1 million, Olaolu Ali gave us N1 million, the one we got during our law week was N500,000. Baba Salman (Alarape) gave us money, Chief Bayo Ojo gave us money, that was what we started the project with. And of course we didn't handle it personally, we gave it to a contractor and we were paying based on work done which was properly assessed just like government work. We have committee on that under Dr. Ariyoosu.

We organised the Book in Honour Project as part of fundraising because we said we cannot be asking for money here and there and we realised about N11 million mostly in pledges. We had about N2 million cash. We used that for the building, leaving about N8.5 million pledges. The record has shown that this money is now coming in but this present administration has not been using the money for the project and has not even informed the members. I have been attending general meetings and not once have we been informed that they have recouped such and such amount of money.

And I wrote to the Court of Appeal which bought about 100 of that book for N1 million and before we left office I wrote them and I have confirmed that they have paid that N1 million. Chief Adeniyi Akintola is alive and you can ask him, he also gave us his own N500, 000. We are sure of that money. This administration never informed us about it. And the building project was abandoned. Too bad! The debt they said we incurred also includes cost of the roofing sheet, the labour, the cost of iron etc that is the N7 million they said we incurred.

If you remove that amount from the N10 million we left, we have excess. Ojibara stopped the work and by now we should have completed the building. And I said I would assist them in getting the pledges but they asked me to stop but now the money is coming in and they never rendered account. I am surprised that instead of him to answer the questions in the impeachment notice he still continues to malign me.

The argument is that the impeachment move is because you were disallowed from contesting the just concluded NBA national election?

We are lawyers and I don't think we should continue to think this way. We are not market women. Our laws are very clear on impeachment; I cannot spearhead it. In anyway lawyers are reasonable enough to know what is going on. Truly I was disqualified from contesting because he wrote a petition in which he maligned me. I should have challenged that unlawful disqualification but for the need for peace to reign.

We are in court because the Ilorin committee was infringing on our rights to fair hearing and no constitution by any group can override the Nigerian constitution which guarantees our rights to fair hearing but for me to be disqualified because they said I sued NBA is illegal, I leave that to posterity to judge. But I am still going to contest in the future. So, the truth is that I didn’t sign any notice of impeachment. What is my own there?

But you will be happy if ojibara is removed?

Justice must be done; that is me. If they found him wanting of professional misconduct, financial recklessness and abuse of office, so be it. And that is why we are not running away from audit; if they found me wanting let them do the needful to me. We are lawyers. We must have integrity.

What he has done by writing to the national body without the approval and consent of the general body which had adopted my candidature on 28th May 2014 when I informed them I would be contesting without knowing that Ojibara had written to the national body which was received on 27th of May and he was at that meeting but he never informed the house. That was the malice. A Bar leader worth his salt would have informed the general meeting of that letter and we would have discussed it but he kept quiet and that letter was only shown to me three days to the screening.

He didn't copy me, he didn't inform the house. What he has done is against our bye-law because the bye-law says it is the Secretary-General who can communicate the decision of the house to the national body, he does't have the right to do that at all. So, you will know it was all premeditated.

On June 19th he wrote another petition to the Middle Belt Forum saying the branch became aware I was contesting through flyers and text messages meaning that he was hiding the fact that I was endorsed by the branch at a meeting held in the house of Chief Ashaolu, SAN. A Bar leader, a lawyer, should not do that. It is very sad. The Middle Belt Forum invited me and I defended our position and I told them the reliefs we were seeking from the court among which was the appointment of certified auditors

Is that one of the NBA traditions; to appoint auditors?

No audit at all. I told you we work on integrity. But our relief is because of their plans. I never knew their antics so I fell for it because normally at the swearing-in we must adopt the report of the outgoing administration. Actually they were saying they would probe me in order to destroy me.

As chairman you set up the Elders Council, at what stage did they intervene?

Like I mentioned earlier, when this thing started we wrote to them to intervene before the report of the first committee on award/plaque was first mentioned but I think they were too slow maybe they would have averted the crisis. Also when this man wrote the Middle Belt Forum I wrote to the Council of Elders, begging them to please appeal to Ojibara not to replicate the letter to other fora because it can distort things because if they see it they will think it is from my branch not knowing he was acting on his own.

But again maybe the council was slow in reacting. When we went to the court that was when they now began to talk. But after that they have summoned two meetings but I could not attend the first one because I was in the far east campaigning but my Vice Chairman with other two members of the past EXCO were there and that was when I scanned the petition to them and they said they were marvelled, expressing concern that it was ungodly and asking when the branch mandated him to write such a letter against Balogun who was adopted by the branch.

He was lampooned but he said he had already done it. We thought he wouldn't do it again but he repeated it with the Egbe Amofin . He couldn't write them but he talked to the secretary on phone and that one told him he wouldn't take oral submission and asked for written document. He said there was no time again and sent a text message.

When they showed me I referred them to the outcome of the hearing by the Middle Belt Forum which by then had written them to adopt me because they had cleared me and that was what they too did. I had to write the branch secretary after the experience with the Middle Belt Forum and asked to know whether there was a time the EXCO met and mandated the chairman to write a letter against me. The secretary replied that there was never such a meeting and that I was still the candidate of the branch. I have the letter. At any event they do not even have power to override the decision of the congress. By virtue of my position as the immediate past chairman, I am a delegate to the NEC according to the bye-laws.

But I was marvelled because Ojibara manipulated the list and put Jawondo's name. His tenure had expired. During our tenure he was the NEC Representative. I had complained about this on three occasions and they will always tell me it is the chairman who insists that Jawondo is still the NEC Representative.

The national secretariat will always apologise. His answer was that I didn't write the national body to effect the change but I had handed over to them. I was the one who introduced them at the NEC meeting in Nassarrawa so even if there was any error he is the one who should have corrected it. So, the delegate list issue is also a matter of professional misconduct which we are taking up because somebody who ought not to have voted, voted in that election.

Where do you see this impeachment move heading to?

Only the people can talk about that because after the Notice, there will be a meeting where two-third of the members present will determine. Whatever happens is not my business because I have done my own. I am worried up till now he has not denied any of the allegations. Let him come and deny the claims. But if he scales through no problem otherwise I have no issue with that.