ABUJA—THE Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) said yesterday that the various economic policies and reforms of President Olusegun Obasanjo administration were anti-people and draconian with no human face. The NBA also fingered the present helmsmen of the federal and 36 state governments as the sole causes of the myriad of problems facing the country, such as corruption, indiscipline and absence of democracy.
The positions of the umbrella association of lawyers on a wide range of topical issues in the country were contained in a communiqué issued at the end of its five-day Annual General Conference in Abuja last week. The conference had in attendance over 5,000 lawyers from its 88 branches in the country including judges and magistrates.
The lawyers, for the five days, discussed “The Nigerian Nation: Recipe for Survival.” They dissected the Nigerian nation as a whole, examined the causes of its problems, apportioned blame and commendations where necessary and made profound suggestions on the way out of the woods.
The communiqué: “NBA unequivocally condemns the constant hike in the prices of petroleum products and the worrisome state of our refineries.
“NBA feels very strongly that the Federal Government has not taken serious steps to ensure that our refineries turn around and produce at full capacity. We call on the Federal Government to take necessary steps to create an enabling environment for the production of petroleum products internally and at full capacity so that the nation would no more depend on the importation of petroleum products at exorbitant prices to the detriment of the economic survival of the citizens and the nation.
“NBA is very unhappy at the lack of any realistic efforts by the Federal Government to cushion the effect of the hardship on the citizenry by its economic policies and reforms. We are calling on the Federal Government to take steps to cushion the effect of its economic reform programmes on the average citizens,” it added.
The association which also expressed worries over alleged failure of the governments at all levels to address the embarrassing problem of unemployment in the country said it was needless to remind the governments that it was the responsibility of governments all over the world to reduce the rate of unemployment at all levels.
The NBA, however, said: “A situation where over 90 per cent of graduates annually produced by our institutions have no hope of securing employments within a period of more than three years after graduation is condemnable and is hereby condemned,” adding that it “believes that there is a consensus that absence of good leadership at various levels of governments is a major source of Nigeria’s problems and the presence of poor human materials at the control levels of power has proved very expensive for the government. The NBA holds the present leadership of the federal and state governments responsible for lack of good governance.”
