A female lawyer, Halima Gachi, has vowed to boycott the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)’s Annual General Conference 2020 over the withdrawal of Governor Nasir el-Rufai’s speaking invitation.
She stated this in a tweet on Friday.
Recall that el-Rufai had been billed to speak at the 60th NBA AGC scheduled to hold virtually next week.
However, the NBA announced the decision to withdraw the invitation extended to el-Rufai through a tweet on Thursday, noting that the governor was duly informed of its decision.
Many lawyers had faulted the choice of el-Rufai over his alleged poor handling of the Southern Kaduna killings and intolerance for the opposition.
In a letter, titled, ‘Request to Withdraw the Offer of Platform at the 2020 Annual General Conference of the NBA to Mallam Nasir el-Rufai’, and addressed to the Chairman, Technical Committee on Conference Planning, NBA, Prof Koyinsola Ajayi, some lawyers said the governor must not be allowed to speak at the conference.
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The letter, which was signed by Silas Onu and Auta Nyada, listed 10 allegations against el-Rufai and his son, Bello, who is a Special Adviser to Kaduna Central lawmaker, Senator Uba Sani.
The lawyers recalled that el-Rufai had during the run-up to the 2019 general elections threatened that any foreigner who interfered in the election would leave Nigeria in “body bags”.
They stated that several human rights groups had ranked el-Rufai low for his intolerance for the opposition.
Reacting, Gachi said the allegations were unsubstantiated and frivolous.
Gachi wrote, “I know it may not make any difference but I’m boycotting the virtual NBA AGC for the withdrawal of @elrufai as a guest speaker based on frivolous and unsubstantiated allegations #IStandWithElrufai”
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