In the last week, the government faced widespread criticisms over its signing of the agreement, which many Nigerians were against, including some of its ardent supporters. The intervention of the lawyers’ association provides a much-needed breather.

Buffeted by criticisms from a broad section of the country particularly from northern Nigeria, reprieve finally came the way of the government yesterday. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) released a statement declaring Nigeria’s signatory to the SAMOA Agreement does not negate the stiff penalties prescribed against homosexuality, as stated in the constitution.

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The government had been hard-pressed to explain, without much conviction that the agreement it recently penned with the European Union was not against the interest of the generality of Nigerians. With the tantalising prospects of accessing a purported US$150billion facility, many believed the government’s need for funding would lead it to ignore provisions of the constitution, or indeed the cultural peculiarities of Nigerians.

The criticisms have been a deluge, and with a government that has an apparent trust deficit, rebuttals by its officials were lost in the gale.

Signed by NBA President Yakubu Maikyau, the association says that there is no provision in the agreement requiring Nigeria to accept lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) rights as a pre-condition for the $150billion loan. Instead, the agreement was expressly made subject to the local laws and the sovereignty of the contracting Nations. That is to say, the SAMOA agreement recognises, for instance, Nigeria’s Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, 2023 and of course, the Supremacy of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).

Emphatic and unambiguous was the statement from the association of lawyers. It went further to say that if the agreement had mandated Nigeria to endorse LGBTQ rights before accessing the facility, it would have advised against it because that would undermine the country’s sovereignty.

The SAMOA agreement had been a golden opportunity for the critics and opposition of the current government to further bludgeon the Tinubu-led administration. In the last year, several policies of the government have made life worse for Nigerians, pushing many more people into poverty, and businesses shutting down with the ugly spectre of many multinationals that had spent decades in the country leaving in droves.

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The SAMOA Agreement is a framework between the European Union member states and about 79 members of the Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS).

It is the basis for negotiating agreements between the EU and signatories to the agreement, which is named after the central South Pacific Ocean nation where it was signed. The agreement is reported to cover six areas, namely: democracy and human rights, sustainable economic growth and development, climate change, human and social development, peace and security, as well as migration and mobility.

With the intervention of the NBA, there is expected to be a de-escalation of the tension that was snowballing into a major crisis. To further assure Nigerians that it did not just step in to help the government, NBA said that it did a thorough job in going through the agreement and that Nigerians should rest assured that their sensibilities have not been toyed with.

Before the signing of the SAMOA agreement, the Hon. Minister of Budget and Economic Planning requested the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), as a major stakeholder in the polity, to look at the agreement. Consequently, I constituted a committee chaired by Mr. Olawale Fapohunda, SAN, former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Ekiti State and Chairman of the NBA Law Reform Committee, to vet, evaluate and advise on the agreement accordingly.

Adewole Ojo

Adewole Ojo is the Editor-in-Chief of Meiza Nigeria. He can be reached on adewole.ojo@fourpoints.ng.