The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has cautioned the 13 political parties and their candidates in the state’s coming governorship election to play by the rules and avoid instigating the breakdown of law and order.
Chairman of the Benin Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Nosa Edo-Osagie Esq. stated this at the opening ceremony of the Annual Law Week of the branch also known as the Lion Bar with the theme, Law as a tool for economic advancement and national security.
He said, “The political parties and their candidates must play by the rules. Incidentally there are some of the candidates who are members of the NBA. What is critical to the NBA is that they must play the game by the rules otherwise we will have consequences.
“Anarchy is not what we crave for in the society because when there is anarchy, there is a bigger problem than you expect. So for all those aspirants in the field, they must by necessity play by the rules,” he said.
The association also invited some of the candidates including Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) who are both members of the NBA and Sen. Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Isaiah Osifo of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Earlier, the chairman of the planning committee of the Week, Paschal Ugbome said the theme was chosen to reflect the current realities in the country and that solutions would also be proffered at the end of the day.
Ugbome said, “We have chosen the topic, which is topical in our nationhood, which is economic advancement and national security. These two issues today, are capable of either moving us forward as a nation or making us remain static or totally collapsing as a nation.
“As lawyers, we decided to look at it from the prism of law because we believe that law is a pivot on which these two issues rotate. We will interrogate how we have fared as lawyers, how where the law itself has failed as an instrument for economic advancement to guarantee national security. We believe we will come out with a way forward on these issues at the end of the Week,” he said.
In his goodwill message, Governor Godwin Obaseki who was represented by the attorney general and commissioner for Justice, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, said the theme of the weeklong activity is right.
With regards to encouraging investment and economic advancement he said, “We must examine our legal framework with the possibility of reforming it to ensure it is fit for the realities.”
