As lawyers and the general public continue to pour outrage concerning the murder of a female lawyer, Omobolanle Raheem, Mr. John Aikpokpo-Martins, past NBA 1st Vice President, calls out the NBA to ensure that justice is served
Read below John Aikpokpo-Martins’ comment culled from a WhatsApp group conversation.
“Our branch chairmen are a major issue in the fight to protect members from police molestations. The majority of our branch chairmen are not interested in the protection of the human rights of their members or of the public. Lawyers get brutalised and molested by police officers, and we never hear the branch chairmen do anything. The human rights committees of branches are not funded.or prooerly funded…..we spend more on law dinners than on human rights protection or on the human rights committees. I advocated and proposed to NEC as the 1st Vice President to resolve setting aside a certain percentage of monies acruable from members’ dues for human rights activities, but no one cared to even discuss the proposal.
Branch Vice chairs, who are the statutory chairs of human rights committees, are fund starved and discouraged by the branches…..they are doing greatly in the midst of discouraging environment.
The NBA needs to go into this discussion urgently……the branches must properly empower their human rights committee and take more interest in the welfare of their members. Everything must not be left for the National body. The branches are best suited to attend swiftly to the needs of members….the branches must be challenged to live up to expectations; for now, the branches are failing their members and the association.
We must be telling ourselves the hard truths.
May the soul of Omobolanle Raheem rest in peace and may the NBA not rest until justice is served in this particular case.
How can you kill a lawyer on a Christmas day!“
