A new video from the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)’s Annual General Conference (AGC) has surfaced online in which Yakubu Chonoko Maikyau, the association’s president, denied financial misappropriation allegations levelled against him by National Treasurer Caroline Ladidi Anze-Bishop.

Maikyu said that the discord was all about money and implied that the national treasurer was targeting the Bar Practising Fee.

“It’s all about money and I will say that, when we went campaigning to them, we were telling them that this is selfless service. I didn’t know that you were targeting the Bar Practising Fee,” Maikyau said in his rebuttal against the allegations.

READ MORE: National Treasurer Disowns NBA Financial Reports, Says President Maikyau Handled Finances Without Official Consent

At the NBA’s AGC on Thursday, Anze-Bishop accused Maikyau of being highhanded, bypassing her office in the management of the association’s funds and excluding her from committees that dealt with the association’s finances. As a result, Anze-Bishop refused to present the association’s financial reports at the conference.

“I will not disrespect you by standing here to give you unknown figures because I do not know the true financial position of this association,” she told colleagues during her live presentation.

Anze-Bishop also mentioned how Maikyau, at an earlier National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, told her that he did not require her consent to run the financial affairs of the NBA.

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Maikyau, however, denied he ever told the treasurer that he did not need her consent and that his actions were in tandem with the association’s constitution.

“She said I did not need the treasurer to carry out any financial activity of the branch. I never said so,” he said, adding that what he said was that she pointed to where in the constitution it mandated him to seek permission from her before making 10 percent remittances to branches.

“The constitution is here. I don’t need the permission of the treasurer to remit 10 percent. It’s a constitutional duty, and I have performed it. I said, please, if there’s anything that I’ve done that under the constitution is wrong, let me see. She didn’t say anything.

“With respect to the issue of payments, it is very clear in the constitution. It says that payments can be done by me, the secretary, or the treasurer. The provisions are there. I have never made any payment without him (the association’s secretary), and when he was away, she (Anze-Bishop) came, and she was the only person that was recommending payments to me, and I paid.

“I cannot understand how our colleagues will come here and speak in the manner that they did just to put me at odds.”