The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has made its position clear on the 2023 election presidential candidates following rumors that it plans to endorse a particular candidate.
Goldennewsng reports that the body of Nigerian lawyers said it remained an apolitical body that cannot endorse any presidential candidate.
The Nigeria Bar Association National President, Olumide Akpata, stated this at a press conference in Lagos to mark the beginning of the 2022 Annual Conference of NBA.
The clarification followed rumors that the body of Nigerian lawyers is planning to endorse one of the presidential candidates ahead of the 2023 general election.
Among the top three presidential candidates, Peter Obi, Labour Party, Bola Tinubu, All Progressive Congress (APC), and Atiku Abubakar, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), there are rumors that NBA may endorse Peter Obi’s ambition.
Akpata said, “We’re bending over backward to show that that is not the intention and just to add my voice in saying that the NBA can’t and will not endorse one, two, or three parties.”
Akpata explained that the conference session will be hosting four of the 2023 presidential candidates, Peter Obi, Tinubu, Atiku and Kwankwaso, to speak and make known their manifestoes for Nigerians to make the right decision.
“It’s not a manifesto night or afternoon, it’s a regular session at the conference where we are interrogating the issue of democracy in transition and the leadership deficit that we have identified in this country.
“We, however, thought that we should talk to those who are trying to ask us as Nigerians, to allow them to lead. So these are the persons’ that our members selected to be invited because we can’t invite all of them,” Akpata said.
