NBA denies paying singer Portable to perform at its annual conference  

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has denied paying controversial musician Habeeb Okikiola aka Portable to perform at its Annual General Conference staged in Abuja. 

Scores of lawyers and attendees who present at the event anticipated the appearance of an A-list act but were shocked when Portable approached the stage as a guest artiste.

This left some of the attendees horrified forcing them to stage a walkout after the singer took the stage as they argued that the singer should not have been invited to a gathering of ‘’learned fellows”.

While reacting to the incident, the National Publicity Secretary of the NBA, Akorede Lawal who spoke in an interview with Punch said that no dime was paid to Portable to perform at the concert.

READ ALSO: Portable details his plans to win a Grammy in the near future (Video)

“We did not pay a dime to Portable for the concert. It is the largest gathering of lawyers anywhere in the world and so to that extent, we always write to sponsors to finance every level of our events. We have partners from America, Chile, and a host of other countries who pride in what we do and take it upon themselves to get the programme financed annually,” he said.

On whether lawyers staged a walkout on Portable at the event, the publicity secretary said; “No, they did not. The Friendship Centre is the customary place where all lawyers go to unwind, network and do all other social activities. So, the concert was meant to take place there but we later told the lawyers to move to the ‘Unbarred concert’ at the Velodrome of the National Stadium in Abuja because we don’t want two events at the same time given that that place (Friendship Centre) had been decorated already to promote their brands.

‘‘They were the headline sponsor of the centre and that’s where the DJs and every other social activity had been going on since the start of the event. So we closed the place down to have a unified event,” he added.