Julius Malema in Enugu
By Femi Olugbile
The Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association for 2025 was suffused with an air of controversy even before its ceremonial opening. First was the issue of the venue. Port Harcourt was the original venue. It could not be used because Rivers State was under a State of Emergency, and lawyers did not want to appear to be supporting the controversial appointment of a Sole Administrator the State.
Then it emerged that the Association had received a ‘gift’ of three hundred million naira from the governor of the State before the declaration of a State of Emergency. They refused to hand it back.
The Conference was moved to the International Conference Centre in Enugu.
The AGC of the Nigerian Bar Association is the largest gathering of lawyers on the African continent. It packs muscle and star power, as can always be seen by the presence of top government officials, and an array of invited international and local dignitaries.
Over the years, including during the long spells of military dictatorship endured by the nation, the relationship of the Association with the government of the day has had a love-hate flavour. While the Association goes to great lengths not to appear to be cozying up to government, it is not uncommon for it to accept financial support, or for holders of its top offices to end up later in some political office, including that of the Attorney General of the Federation.
Julius Malema, stormy petrel of the South African political scene and bête noire to the Afrikaners was the keynote speaker for this year. His choice was a curious one. Not to put too fine a point on it, South Africa owes Nigeria, as those who possess History and a sense of common decency among its leaders are only too aware. President Ramaphosa himself would probably have attended if he had been invited. Picking Malema the firebrand who used to be the head of the Youth Wing of the African National Congress until he was expelled for his extreme radicalism, and whose Economic Freedom Fighters in their berets and garish red outfits are a daily terror to the Establishment in parliament and sometimes on the streets, is a brilliant way of reaching behind the government to feel the pulse of the next generation of South African leadership, and to get a sense of the country’s future.
Malema is a complicated man. He stands for the hoi polloi, but in his private life, he lives large. Some of his pronouncements are contrary to his avowed philosophy. Singing the old anti-Apartheid battle song ‘…Shoot the Boer’ is more ‘in your face’ provocation than violent physical action. Malema is not known to have killed anyone, and he has white friends and sponsors. He is a pan-Africanist who opposes grassroots xenophobes such as the Dudula movement who have been spreading hate of fellow Africans in the cities and townships, and even trying to throw them out of public hospitals. His condemnation of the growing hostility has cost him political support, since the poor grassroots disaffected citizens who lend themselves to xenophobia are also the ones most like to support EFF. He would rather dispense with the support of such persons and groups than change his stand, he vows. It is a matter of principle.
Malema regularly declares his admiration of Nigerians for their boldness and independent spirit.
On the Enugu podium, he lives up to his billing. He sees the legal profession as partners of liberation activism, where he situates himself. Support for the rule of Law is only justified if the Law itself embodies justice. Apartheid crimes against Africans were carried out with the backing of extant laws. It was legal for several centuries to enslave, abuse and kill Africans, and to pillage their mineral resources.
Referring to his parliamentary experience, he says
‘…We now sit in corridors which were built to break the back and the souls of Africans…’
It took brave men, he recalls, to say that if the oppression of Africans was lawful, then such laws were unjust and to be resisted.
He sees Africa’s current major challenge as one against leaders who appropriate state power for themselves and use it against their people. The time has come again, he says, to gear up for struggle.
He speaks of being motivated by Marxism-Leninism and ‘Dialectical Materialism’. For a moment he sounds like something out of the Cold War archives of a long-extinct Moscow politburo. It strikes you his purpose would have been better served by speaking of African Communalism and Ubuntu.
His EFF was formed ‘to complete the liberation struggle, which was plagued by compromise, betrayal and corruption of the mission for the return of the land and wealth of South Africa to the hands of the people…’
Nigeria and South Africa must collaborate, integrate their economies and move forward together, harnessing their resources.
‘Xenophobia is a betrayal of African people…It is a sickness borne out of poverty…’
He advocates a visa-free Free Trade regime for all Africa.
‘We cannot treat each other badly and expect other people to treat us better…’
This Malema is interesting, you reflect, as he rounds up. Is he looking rather gaunt and frail, compared to his previous round cheeks and bullish frame, or is it your eye?His point of departure from Mandela, and Ramaphosa, and the mainstream ANC, is that he believes the fight should be for Justice, not Reconciliation.
He touches on Apartheid and genocide in Gaza, and on the hypocrisies of ‘International Law’.
He has been denounced as a ‘racist’ by Donald Trump – a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
The fear of Malema and his ilk taking over South Africa some day is the nightmare scenario driving many Afrikaners, reluctantly, to support the Ramaphosa coalition. Malema is itching to do ‘expropriation without compensation’ of Apartheid-appropriated land from whites, not just talk about it.
His ultimate vision of ‘one Africa with one President’ is a moonshot, but for this audience of rich and wannabe-rich Nigerian lawyers practising an amoral technicality-focussed Law in a defective Capitalism, which has already tipped over from ‘the Rule of Law’ to ‘the Rule of Lawyers abetting Politicians’, striving beyond present Law to get Justice for the masses suddenly sounds attractive, at least in the moment.
Their applause is warm as Malema thanks the audience and steps away.
