Yakubu Chonoko Maikyau who is one of the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has finally emerged as the 36th President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) after a recent election which had been conducted by the organisation.
In the election, Maikyau had polled a total of 22,342 votes to defeat the other two other contenders who had been jostling for the post, Joe-Kyari Gadzama (SAN), Chairman of the NBA Securities Agencies Relations Committee; and Jonathan Taidi, a former General Secretary of the NBA.
The results were announced by the Chairman of the NBA Electoral Committee, Mr Ayodele Akintunde (SAN), at a hybrid press briefing on Sunday.
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According to him, the total number of people on the final voter register stood at 59,392 while about 3,000 were disenfranchised due to the inability to verify their data.
“A total of 59,392 records were received for people on the final voter register, and we were able to upload 59,388 records with four records being invalid contact information.
“A total of 34, 809 votes were cast representing 58.61 percent of the total number of eligible voters, while 1,314 ballots opened but were not cast,” he said.
He said that Maikyau polled 22,342 votes representing 64.6 percent of votes cast for the office of the president, while Gadzama polled 10,842 votes and Taidi polled 1,380.
In another report, the body guarding the activities of legal practitioners in Nigeria, Nigerian Bar Association, (NBA) has reacted to the recent non-asset declaration charges filed against the Chief Justice of the federation, Justice Walter Onnoghen . The legal body has described it as an attempt to intimidate judges ahead of the coming 2019 general elections. The President of the body, Mr Paul Usoro (SAN), tagged the move a “Targeted assault of the judiciary by the agents of the Federal Government.”
He also stressed that, “A pattern of consistent assault by agencies of the Federal Government on the heads of the two independent arms of government. There are two final issues that we must touch upon in this statement, albeit, briefly. First, could it possibly be a coincidence that the current assault on the judiciary is taking place only weeks to the 2019 National Election?
“Apart from the conduct itself being wrongful and deplorable, its timing is condemnable. FGN will find it difficult to convince any reasonable person that its assault against the CJN and by extension the judiciary is not aimed at emasculating that arm of the government and intimidating our judges ahead of the 2019 elections.
“In our afore-referenced International Anti-Corruption Day Statement, the NBA had deplored conducts that qualify as political non-accountability, absence of transparency and impunity in public service. The FGN’s conduct in this instance qualifies, among others,as impunity in public service.
Usoro cited the case of the senate president, Dr Bukola Saraki, affirming FGN’s move in disrupting democracy.”