The legal community has been embroiled in heated debate over the propriety of the Nigerian Bar Association 2025 conference planning committee collecting N300 million from the Rivers State Government. Later, the committee decided to deny the state the hosting right due to President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of a sole administrator. While some described it as immoral and requested a refund, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chris Okeke, in this interview with JOSEPH ONYEKWERE, declared that the money is a non-refundable investment that yields its return in billions.

What do you think about the brouhaha between the Rivers State Government and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) about a conference donation of N300 million?
First, I don’t consider it any brouhaha at all. It is not even the Rivers State Government in the proper definition of it. It is Rivers State’s sole administrator. In the context of government and governance, he is not the Rivers State Government. He doesn’t have a cabinet or a council. He is a one-man show sent in there only as a sole administrator. And so, the question of donation was made by a legitimate government acting in its capacity, and only that legitimate government is competent to discuss the money, not the sole administrator.

The issue is that the Rivers State Governor, Sim Fubara, when he was in office, donated N300 million to the NBA. Now, it appears like lawyers are divided over whether the money should be returned or not. Some are saying that it is an inducement on the side of the NBA leadership to have collected money from a State Government.

So, what is your position on this?
Inducement to do what? What are you inducing the leadership of the NBA to do? They’ve done conferences year after year, and it’s been that way before I even became a lawyer. It’s been that way for such a long time. So, inducement suggests that you’re being made to go out of your way to do what you ordinarily shouldn’t have done.

This is completely out of it. The thing is, a decision was made to host the NBA in the city of Port Harcourt, like it could have been in any city. And naturally and consequently, whoever is the chief executive of that state or that city, necessarily must be in the picture by becoming the host automatically. This is because he has to guarantee the safety of people who will be coming there. So, there’s no inducement at all.

Can you address the issue of donation?
Again, I have a problem with that word – donation. This is because whoever is the host must indicate capacity and ability to host. For instance, they will have to ensure that their infrastructure is top-notch. They must show that they can cope with that kind of crowd during the conference period. So, the question of donation for me, again, is totally out of it. Now, in practice, from time to time, in any city you go to host the NBA, the governor will be there as the chief host and welcome people.

So, what’s the correct name for the money?
Support! It is a Corporate Social Responsibility to show that they agree to host the conference and want it to take place in their state.

Is there any way a state government that is coughing out such an amount of money for the NBA conference benefits from that process?
They benefit hugely in every aspect. It boosts their economy. This is why states make serious efforts to host. Now, close your eyes and do the math. A minimum of about 16,000 or more lawyers will come to your city. They will stay in hotels, eat and pay for transport. The transport industry benefits. The aviation industry benefits. The hospitality industry benefits. Every facet of the economy will benefit. There is no way a state can host an NBA yearly conference without making billions in revenue.

In other words, it’s almost like an investment for the hosting states?
Clearly so! If it is not so, why are they complaining that the hosting was removed from Rivers? If you are not profiting from it, why are you complaining that it is removed? If it were a charity or something, you would not benefit from there would be no complaint. A state that properly harnesses the NBA’s yearly general conference will make billions in profit for that same period. This is because hotels will all be fully booked. Even kiosks that call themselves hotels will be fully booked. Food will be sold in excess. The transport sector will see gloom. Every sector will be touched, and taxes will be paid. So, it was an unnecessary controversy as far as we are concerned.

The issue of the appointment of a sole administrator in Rivers State also generated a lot of controversy. Is the appointment constitutional?
In any case, the President only said he suspended the governor. So Fubara is still the governor. The members of the House of Assembly are still there. But the President doesn’t have the power to remove an elected governor. It amounts to suspending the will of the people. That is a coup d’etat!

But a lot of people have pointed out that former President Olusegun Obasanjo did the same thing, and the heavens didn’t fall?
There is a difference between heavens falling and illegality begetting legality. Illegality doesn’t beget legality. As a matter of fact, in one of the papers I wrote years back, I described Obasanjo’s action as illegal. And it will always be illegal. You can’t subvert the will of the people, and that’s what the President has tried to do. The President doesn’t have such power. He cannot subvert the will of the people.

The declaration of a state of emergency and the appointment of the sole administrator are supposed to last for six months. Agitators are asking the President to rescind that decision. It looks like he’s not interested in that. What do we do to safeguard democracy and check such unconstitutional actions?
Let me also re-emphasise that what the President has done is illegal and unconstitutional. He doesn’t have such power. He sacked the governor elected by the people. He didn’t stop there. He said he suspended the House of Assembly. And the sole administrator he appointed is also going to the extent of saying he’s sacking people appointed by the legitimate government. That’s awful!

Going forward, I think that people should be able to say enough is enough. That’s number one. Number two, our courts should also rise as an equal partner in a democratic government and stamp their feet on the ground against every act of illegality. They are equal partners, not subservient partners.

Our own Lord Denning, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, whom I am very proud to have associated with as his biographer when he was on this side of eternity, will never allow such a thing to stay. I am too sure that Justices Oputa, Kayode Eso, and Karibi Whyte in the Supreme Court would not have tolerated things like this. I’m so sure of that!

A conflict between two political gladiators led to this. When the six months elapse, the governor will be restored, and the same House of Assembly will also be restored.

Are you foreseeing a resolution, or is this conflict likely to remain?
This is where I have my challenge with our political actors in this democracy. It appears we learn nothing over the years. We keep running into the same errors. In 1963, we had the same problem in the Western region.

That chain of events snowballed into the Civil War, where millions of souls were lost. My generation survived because God saved us.

It was the same scenario in 1984. NPN was boasting to the high heavens. Now, the same scenario is playing out again. Do we ever learn? On resolution, what are the issues? A man has served his tenure as a governor. Another man is serving his tenure as a governor. Why not allow him to do his terms? It doesn’t matter whether he won or he came to the office by fraud or crookedly, what’s important is that now, INEC said that the people elected him.

But his godfather sponsored him. Were there not agreements and terms to be fulfilled before he was selected?
It means that the exalted office of a governor has become a subject of personal agreements and terms.

Certainly, the minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike, is not mincing words, and he’s not hiding it. He had spoken openly and boasted that he sponsored every one of the elected public officers in Rivers State under the PDP.

He sponsored all the political nominees in his state. At that time, he bought forms for them across the board, including those in the National Assembly. It is really sad and a manifestation of a failed state.

For a minister of a government to say so in the open and not receive a rebuke from his principal and appointor means we’re in for a rough ride. And unless we check it, it will get to a point where it becomes uncontrollable.

During his appointment, the President said the administrator will not make laws, but he’s making appointments into local governments, taking decisions that some people consider ultra vires. What do you think about all of these?
He has no power to do so. I would say that the local government, for instance, is elected by the people.

I’ve read one of the things somebody wrote, saying that the governor conducted elections outside the law, based on which the Supreme Court clamped down on those local governments. That is the governor and the Supreme Court, and the law. It has nothing to do with the sole administrator at all.

Whatever the Supreme Court said affected the governor, not the sole administrator. He has no such power. He cannot tamper with the will of the people. The sole administrator was appointed by the president to administer Rivers State. He has no business with Local Councils in the State. It’s an aberration. It’s illegal and unconstitutional.

Do you think the situation in Rivers State was such that justifies the invocation of a state of emergency by Mr. President?
I can objectively say that the President exercised those powers wrongly, not presidentially. Just like we say, judicial powers must be exercised judicially and judiciously.

So, presidential powers too must be exercised presidentially. And I’m sorry to say, in my opinion, this is not one of the objective exercises of presidential powers.

Going forward, how can this issue be resolved completely because the main actors do not seem to be interested in sheathing their swords at this time?
Mr President should uphold the Constitution, not his whims and caprices. Mr President should call his appointees to order. And the President should allow the federating units of the Nigerian states to function.

And he should importantly allow the other arms of government to function. Once these things are done, there will be no conflict anywhere.

But Mr President is also a politician, and some of these things are politically induced. For instance, a wobbling Rivers State, which is an opposition PDP state, brightens his chances for a second term in office. Will you rule out politics in all of this?
Everything you see is politics, but there’s a difference between statesmen and politicians. Statesmen are not necessarily politicians. At the time when he was playing politics, he played politics, but the moment he became the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he must draw the line between politics and statesmanship. So, if he now chooses to play politics with the safety and the lives of Rivers people, then he has chosen to be a politician as against a statesman. And history will make the decisions on him going forward.