The former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), has declared that his stewardship as the NBA president was unblemished.
According to him, just as it was in the few public offices he held in time past, whether as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council of the University of Ibadan, Pro-Chancellor of the Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo and Chancellor of the Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology, Ikere, he did the jobs in honesty.
“It is on record that, in all of these offices, I did not only decline the statutory emoluments legitimately accruing to me, I also deployed my God-given resources to the course of humanity and the advancement of the institutions,” he said.
He recounted his efforts to get justice for the slain NBA couple, Barnabas Igwe and wife, Abigail during his tenure.
Olanipekun who was the president of NBA between 2002 and 2004 when the couple were gruesomely murdered, said he did everything to honour the dead and provide succour for their children.
In a piece titled, “Juliana and Vincent Igwe: POTY 2023”, human rights lawyer, Prof Chidi Anselm Odinkalu had declared the elder brother of the deceased as Persons of the year (POTY) for assuming responsibilities of the deceased family since their death, despite NBA pledge to do so.
However, Olanipekun in his reaction, titled, “Re: Juliana And Vincent Igwe: POTY 2023 – That The Truth May Set Us Free”, insisted that frantic efforts were made by his administration to unravel the killers.
“While I must not be misunderstood as suggesting that the Igwes got the justice that we all anticipated and assiduously worked towards, the point must be made that all of us, borrowing the words of John Pepper Clark, are “casualties” of the systemic inefficiencies that characterise every facet of our national polity – a polity to which Prof. Odinkalu, beyond mere rhetoric, is not a stranger.
“After all, he sat atop the National Human Rights Commission as its Chairman, between December 8, 2011 and December 8, 2015. In that position, he had the mandate of investigating all cases of human rights violation (including those of the Igwes) and assisting victims of such violations.
“With all respect to him, I am not aware of any effort that he made, while he held sway, to address this grievous violation to the most sacred of all rights meted on the Igwes.
“Interestingly, on May 6, 2022, he was appointed by the current Government of Anambra State to head the Truth, Justice and Peace Committee, whose charge includes, seeking a restorative justice approach for truth-telling or real facts for the healing of the victims of the violence in the State right from 1999,” he stated.
The lawyer added that beyond coronating Juliana and Vincent Igwe as his ‘Persons of the Year’, it is a unique opportunity for Prof. Odinkalu to demonstrate his loyalty to the slain couple and their family, as well as to the course of justice, by stoically facing his present assignment, and ensuring, amongst others, a restorative justice for the Igwe family.
According to him, fair-minded chroniclers of NBA history would never assert, even in their wildest imagination, that the NBA, under his leadership, abandoned any lawyer or cause.
For the Igwes, he stressed that NBA under his leadership did all that it could, to the extent of obtaining fiats to prosecute the cases against the suspected perpetrators of their murder.
A few reputable legal practitioners were drafted into the private prosecution teams of the NBA, he said.
“I wonder if my dearly beloved Chidi is aware of all these! If he is not aware, I urge him to revisit the archives, including inquiring from Vincent Igwe about who prompted the withdrawal of the cases from court.”
“He should also dig into the archives, perhaps, with the assistance of Mr. Vincent Igwe to clarify further issues surrounding the purported sum of N400,000 given to the Igwe family by the then Governor of Imo State, the payee of the cheque, how it was endorsed to the NBA account, which of the NBA accounts, etc.
“Credible research work demands no less. While not holding brief for successive NBA regimes after mine, I can fairly posit that, like mine, they did not abandon the Igwes,” he declared, adding that it is unfortunate that mudslinging has become the order of the day in the same profession into which “I was initiated about five decades ago.”
In the good old days, he said, they were marinated in the virtues and values of camaraderie and natural justice, such that, before suing or calling out a colleague, “you had the obligation of first sounding him out to get an insight into his own side of the story. I must confess that I have taken this creed as a sacred catechism throughout my career, till date.”
