Mr Onyekachi Ubani, a former Chairman of the Ikeja Branch of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), says the association’s Section on Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL) has been positioned to live up to its mandate.
Ubani made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.
According to him, before now, there was no institutional litigation on behalf of the NBA on public interest matters.
He said that individual members of NBA often took up litigations on public interest cases.
Ubani, also Chairman, Committee on Conference Planning of NBA-SPIDEL, said that SPIDEL currently led by Prof. Paul Ananaba, would live up to its mandate on public interest and development law.
“There has really been a revival of SPIDEL in placing it where it ought to be as a section of the NBA that provides a voice for the voiceless.
“Although SPIDEL has always been discussing public interest issues and issuing communique, there has not been a proactive or practical undertaking by NBA as a body to take up some of the violations of rights or public interest issues.
“In our forthcoming NBA-SPIDEL conference which is three days away, the role of public interest in governance is to be discussed as the central theme.
“We need to revive the issue that governance is about the people and not about individuals who are mandated on behalf of the people; it is a social contract,” he told NAN.
Ubani said that the joy of the citizens should be a priority of elected public officers.
“We want to bring all the arms of government and drum it into their hearts that it is about the people and not about them,’’ he said. (NAN)
