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By: Inuwa Bwala
Not only is the annual Bar Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA regarded as a assemblage of professional luminaries, it is also a rhendezvous for robust intellectual engagement. I know as a matter of fact that, lawyers always want to appear smart, but I am not aware, the colloquium is an outfit parade.
Every participant or guest to the conference did not leave their homes with the intention to get accolades or prizes for appearance, rather to add value to the most important gathering of Nigerian lawyers. I was not therefore impressed with the snapshot of Senator Kashim Shettima adorning what some people felt was inappropriate dress, which is trending in the social media.
I am sure if the Presidential running mate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, had been told that part of the agenda of the conference was to scrutinize people’s dresses, he could have complied with any dress code given. I say this conscious of the fact that, public appearance, nay dressing have never been an issue with Distinguished Senator Kashim Shettima
He remains one public figure to whom looks and brain are his attributes.
It is not in doubt, that, Shettima is one of the flamboyant dressers, even amongst his peers, but far beyond this, he is an authority on any subject he is asked to speak to at any public forum.
Every discerning mind could see through the motive behind the trending picture in the Social Media: to the effect that some people were just out to embarrass the gentleman.
The colleague who forwarded the snapshot of Senator Kashim Shettima to me, said this much in the ridder to the post.
My take on the issue was to first ask, whether Kashim Shettima, who stood in for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Presidential standard bearer of the APC, was singled out to further the narrative, which seeks to demarket their ticket, or to tap from his rich repository of intellectualism?
If the former was the case, I think the authors of the mischief only succeeded in temporarily embarrassing Shettima, but grossly failing to take the shine from him, as he was perhaps the most outstanding intellectual amongst the non legal personalities at the conference.
If the later was the case, I feel that, those who showed interest in Shettima’s outfit much more than what he brought to the table were most uncharitable to the bar, which stand to benefit from the blend of ideas with Shettima.
It is not for nothing that lawyers regard each other as learned. This concept finds interpretation in both their outputs and their conducts, and allowing that piece of mischief to define their interactions with their guests at the conference was indeed very unfortunate.
If it were not a Bar conference, at which speakership was restricted amongst professional lawyers, Kashim Shettima would have dazzled the men of the wig with his oratory presentation. Even at that, the brief remarks he made, must have erased whatever notions, those who did not know him may have held.
Those who seek to embarrass Kashim Shettima with those posts should take up the challenge he threw to those who heard him speak; that what will define our future may not be rhetorics, nay propaganda, but experience and capacity. The days ahead will bring out those attributes.
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