Bulkachuwa: NBA President’s Statement is “Odd and Bizarre”, He cant’s Speak for NJC – Odinkalu

Foremost Nigerian lawyer, human rights activist, and writer, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu has slammed the President of Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Y.C. Maikyau SAN for issuing an “odd and bizarre” statement in reaction to the Statement made by Senator Adamu Bulkachuwa on how he influenced his wife to assist fellow Senators to win court cases.

Senator Adamu Bulkachuwa was reported to have made a statement on the floor of the Nigerian Senate, where he admitted to influencing his wife, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, a retired Justice of the Appeal Court, to help her colleagues win court cases. A video of the senator making the statement was shared on social media, causing widespread condemnation and calls for an investigation into the matter.

The NBA President had issued a statement where he revealed that National Judicial Council Condemned the Senators Statement in the Strongest terms.

Odinkalu in faulting the Statement by the NBA President, stated that the NJC did not condemn the statement and the NBA President should not be speaking for the NJC as he is not the NJC Spokesperson.

Odinkalu stated the things wrong with the NBA President’s Statement as follows;

The @NigBarAssoc president describes Adamu Bulkachuwa as guilty of “disgusting & despicable conduct” & took liberty to announce that the @njcNIG “condemned the actions of the senator in the strongest terms….” There are many problems with this statement. Let me point out a few:

1st, it’s not clear what “conduct” the NJC purportedly condemned: the fact that Adamu Bulkachuwa confessed or the acts he confessed to. As to the former, he was a beneficiary of Parliamentary privilege; as to the latter, the NJC cannot condemn what it’s chosen not to investigate

2nd, it is odd that the president of @NigBarAssoc shd presume to issue a statement for @njgNIG. Although he is a member of the NJC, he is not its chairperson or presiding officer nor its spokesperson. The capacity in which he announced the NJC’s condemnation is dubious:

Third, if @njcNIG can’t condemn what it has not investigated & the president of @NigBarAssoc can’t become spokesperson of the NJC without proper appointment, it shd be clear, 3rdly, that any claim about him on the “integrity & independence of the judiciary” are a set up.

What seems clear on the face of this statement is this: the @njcNIG met & failed, refused, or neglected to adopt a position on the most serious issue affecting judicial integrity in #Nigeria. The president of @NigBarAssoc, which is on the NJC, then issued a statement as cover up.

If anything is “disgusting & despicable”, this is it. The fact that the @njcNIG is unwilling & unable to as a statutory & constitutional body to establish the factual bases for issuing a condemnation in this circumstance stands as damnation of that body under current leadership.”