Muslim lawyers have petitioned the leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), threatening to break away the body and float a new association over alleged marginalisation. The lawyers under the auspices of Muslim Lawyers’ Association of Nigeria (MULAN), in its petition, accused the NBA of being “stereotypical and intolerant in the manner it treats her Muslim members and matters related to Islam”.
In the petition signed by the duo of MULAN president, Prof Abdulqadir Ibrahim Abikan and secretary-general, Adam Olori-Aje, they alleged that successive leaderships of the NBA had continued to treat her Muslim members with ignominy and reckless abandon.
They added that notable among the atrocities allegedly committed against Muslim members of the association was the exclusion of Muslim lawyers in the NBA Affairs and development activities.
The group said it was constrained to avoid polarization of NBA along religious or regional lines, lamenting that the leadership of NBA appears not to see anything wrong in the marginalisation of Muslim members.
They also accused the NBA of double standards in the promotion of rule of law in the country, threatening to float a new NBA if the present NBA failed to accommodate all its members.
“After exercising a great deal of restraint as a professional body, the Muslim Lawyers’ Association of Nigeria (MULAN) is compelled by a catalogue of developments to make this statement on the self-inflicted journey into perdition embarked upon by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) regarding the stereotypical and intolerant manner it treats her Muslim members and matters having to do with Islam.
“In the past few years, we have observed, with dismay, that successive leaderships of NBA have continued to treat her Muslim members with ignominy and reckless abandon that one would wonder if the Association is truly for all members of the noble profession or a “national body” with regional and religious bias,’’ they said.
