It is no more exclusive that the Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and Founder of the law firm of Paul Usoro and Co has been declared the elected President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) in just held elections into the executive positions of the association. What remains controversial is the electoral process that ushered in his victory. Many of his colleagues in the profession have registered their grievances against the system allegedly skewed and fraudulently manipulated to favour the emergence of Usoro. The allegation of electoral fraud against Usoro and the outgoing executive led by Mahmoud Abubakar Balarabe became weighty when it was levelled by no other person but Femi Falana.
In a strongly worded misgivings, Falana berated the whole exercise and different roles played by different people and organisations to give victory to Usoro by hook and crook. Chams was said to have manipulated voters’ data to pave way for fraudulent outcome. Usoro was insinuated by Falana to have connived with Chams, whose chairperson sits on the board of a new generation bank, of which Usoro is also a non-executive director. This, according to Falana, has made NBA lose its integrity and nobility, and therefore robbed it of the moral right to speak on bribery, corruption, electoral malfeasance and violation of the rule of law and due process.
“I weep for those who sowed the seeds of this darkness that has completely shattered the hope of light. Nigeria lawyers deserve to think deeply and bring themselves out of the valley of darkness we are going through. This profession must not be brought to its knees completely. While those who have been declared “elected” have every cause to celebrate and thank God, I wish they too can weep for the processes that threw them up,” Falana wrote.
Usoro is not new to his integrity being questioned. Last year, he was accused by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of bribing a judge, having paid a huge sum of money to the judge’s bank account. Usoro only retorted to the accusation by admitting that he only transferred N550,000 to the account in three instalments following what Usoro described as “a friendly request” from the judge whom he claimed he had known for a long time.
It is an incontrovertible that Paul Usoro is a force to reckon with in the legal profession where he stands tall above his peers. His rise to the enviable honour of being called a Senior Advocate of Nigeria speaks volume of years of hardwork he has put in and the legal feats he has achieved over time. But all that appears to paling into insignificance as his values have had to be called to question by people not known for flippancy. And going by these questionings, Paul Usoro needs a lot of explaining to do rescue what is left of his battered integrity.
