{"id":28260,"date":"2020-08-20T19:22:39","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T18:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=28260"},"modified":"2020-08-20T19:22:39","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T18:22:39","slug":"nba-withdraws-invitation-to-el-rufai-following-protests-by-lawyers-over-human-rights-record-and-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=28260","title":{"rendered":"NBA withdraws invitation to el Rufai following protests by lawyers over human rights record and comments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Nigerian Bar Association has withdrawn its invitation to Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, (to speak at its annual general conference) following protests from some lawyers.<br \/><br \/>The NBA said this in a tweet on Thursday via its Twitter handle @NigBarAssoc.<br \/><br \/>The tweet read, \u201cThe National Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association at its ongoing meeting resolves that the invitation to the Kaduna State Governor, H.E. Nasir El-Rufai, by the 2020 Annual General Conference Planning committee be withdrawn and decision communicated to the Governor.\u201d<br \/><br \/>A\u00a0petition to stop the governor from attending the Annual General Conference\u00a0which was started by a lawyer, Usani Odum, had garnered over 3,150 signatures on Change.Org as of 4 pm on Thursday.<br \/><br \/>In a separate letter titled, \u2018Request to Withdraw the Offer of Platform at the 2020 Annual General Conference of the NBA to Mallam Nasir el-Rufai,\u2019 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.<br \/><br \/>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.<br \/><br \/>They faulted the NBA for inviting el-Rufai, citing his alleged poor human rights record and his inability to stop the killings, particularly in southern Kaduna.<br \/><br \/>The lawyers also referenced many controversial utterances of the governor, including a threat during the run-up to the general elections in 2019 that any foreigner that interfered in the poll would leave Nigeria in body bags.<br \/><br \/>The NBA virtual conference, which holds from August 24-26, 2020, is expected to have Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), in attendance.<br \/><br \/>Others expected to speak at the event include former Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State, Governor Wike of Rivers State and a former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili.<br \/><br \/>The theme of the conference is: \u2018Am I a Nigerian \u2013 A Debate on National Identity, the Indigeneship-Citizenship Conundrum&#8217;.<br \/><br \/>\u25aa\ufe0e Report by <strong>The Punch<\/strong><br \/><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nigerian Bar Association has withdrawn its invitation to Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, (to speak at its annual general conference) following protests from some lawyers. The NBA said this in a tweet on Thursday via its Twitter handle @NigBarAssoc. The tweet read, \u201cThe National Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association at its ongoing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[25,2144,30],"class_list":["post-28260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-el-rufai","tag-invitation","tag-nba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}