The NBA Annual General Conference is arguably the most anticipated event on the calendar of the Nigerian Bar Association. Every year, thousands of lawyers travel across the country to attend. We reconnect with colleagues, meet new people, learn, debate ideas and experience the collective energy of the Nigerian legal profession gathered in one place.
I have attended three NBA Annual General Conferences since I was called to the Bar, and while every conference has its challenges, there were certain things about the 2026 Conference in Port Harcourt that, in my opinion, deserve an honest conversation.
This is not an attempt to paint the conference as entirely bad. Far from it. Criticism, when made honestly, should be an opportunity to improve. But some of the issues experienced this year appeared to reflect problems that proper planning could have anticipated.
The Rain Was Not Unexpected
The Conference was held at the stadium in Port Harcourt during August, which is the peak of the rainy season. Yet, heavy rainfall left parts of the conference environment flooded and muddy. Lawyers had to walk through water and mud, while vehicles drove through accumulated water around the venue.
Rain cannot be controlled, but planning for rain can. When thousands of people are expected at an outdoor or semi-outdoor venue during the peak of the rainy season, flooding, drainage, covered walkways and weather contingencies should not be afterthoughts.
At different points, lawyers were having lunch under canopies while rain leaked through them. Some people were drenched despite being under cover, while others stood or sat around muddy and flooded areas while trying to eat. I personally saw lawyers eating their lunch while their feet were literally inside muddy water.
For an event of this scale and importance, we can do better. The issue is not that it rained; the issue is whether the event was adequately prepared for the possibility that it would.
We Need to Rethink How Food Is Distributed at the AGC
This is something I have wondered about across the three conferences I have attended. Why do we still distribute food this way?
At the beginning of this year's conference, there was an attempt to introduce digital meal tickets, apparently moving away from the traditional paper tickets issued to participants for lunch. It was a good idea, but the system appeared not to work as intended and was eventually abandoned almost immediately. We then returned to the familiar experience of thousands of lawyers queuing and scrambling for food.
There is something deeply uncomfortable about watching thousands of professionally dressed lawyers standing in long queues, pushing through crowds and struggling to collect meals. This is not simply about appearances; it is also about organisation, dignity and hygiene. This year, lawyers queued and scrambled for food under the rain.
Surely, with the technology and logistical capacity available today, there must be better ways to manage meal distribution for a conference of this size. Pre-order systems, scheduled collection times, multiple decentralised collection points, reliable digital vouchers and partnerships with restaurants and food vendors around the city are all options worth exploring.
We cannot continue doing the same thing the same way every year and expect significantly different results.
The Sale of Participant Tags Is a Serious Security Concern
This was perhaps one of my biggest concerns. Around the conference environment, participant tags were allegedly being openly sold by individuals. This creates a serious security problem.
If access to the conference venue can effectively be obtained by purchasing something that resembles a participant tag outside the venue, then how secure is the conference? A person who did not register, a person who is not a lawyer or a person with completely unrelated intentions could potentially gain access simply by obtaining a tag. That should concern all of us.
The NBA AGC attracts thousands of people, including senior lawyers, judges, government officials, business leaders and international guests. Security should therefore be treated as a fundamental part of conference planning.
There were reports and complaints of stolen phones during the conference. I was personally affected — my phone was stolen. Of course, theft can happen anywhere large crowds gather, but event security is about reducing unnecessary opportunities and making unauthorised access more difficult. When random people can potentially blend into the environment by obtaining unofficial or forged-looking participant tags, the risk increases.
And theft is not the only concern. I remember an incident at the 2025 Conference in Enugu where a woman raised an alarm after alleging that a man standing behind her in a food queue had been sexually harassing her. From what I observed afterwards, the individual did not appear to be a conference participant and quickly disappeared from the venue.
Whether or not incidents like these are connected to access failures, the broader point remains that we need to take conference access and participant security more seriously. There should be stronger accreditation systems, security personnel should actively prevent the illegal sale of participant tags around the venue, access verification should not depend solely on something hanging around a person's neck, and there should be clear and easily accessible channels for participants to report theft, harassment and other incidents.
We should not wait for something worse to happen before taking these concerns seriously.
The New Administration Has an Opportunity
The NBA has a new administration, and with every new administration comes an opportunity to rethink old systems. The AGC is not just another event; it is arguably the largest annual gathering of lawyers in Nigeria and deserves planning and infrastructure that reflect that importance.
The point of this commentary is not to diminish the work of the organisers or ignore the enormous logistical challenges involved in bringing thousands of people together. Organising an event of this magnitude is difficult, but difficulty should not become an excuse for repeatedly accepting avoidable problems.
The next administration has an opportunity to approach these issues differently. Weather contingencies should be properly anticipated, food distribution should be modernised, security and participant verification should be strengthened, reporting mechanisms should be clearer, and the overall experience of the lawyer attending the conference should be given greater priority.
The NBA AGC remains one of the most important gatherings in the Nigerian legal calendar. That is exactly why we should demand that it continues to improve. The essence of criticism is not always condemnation; sometimes, it is simply an insistence that something important can be better.
And the NBA AGC can be better.
We look forward to seeing what the next administration does differently.
