A Bar Man
I began participating in the activities of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), as soon as I joined the law firm of Dr. Mudiaga Odje & Co., as a member of the NBA Warri Branch – as it then was. Upon relocating to Lagos in 1996, I joined the NBA Lagos Branch. I became more active in Bar activities upon the creation of the NBA Section on Business Law (NBA-SBL) in 2004. I am a foundation member of the NBA-SBL and I worked closely with the pioneer Chairman of the Section, Mr. George Etomi, and his team to operationalise the Section after its inauguration in December 2004 by the then President of the NBA, Chief Bayo Ojo, SAN.
I was also a member of the Planning Committee which organised the very first NBA-SBL Conference that was held in Abuja in March 2006 and which proved to be a transformational conference that set the NBA-SBL on its current trajectory.
My active participation in the NBA-SBL led to my election, in January 2012, as Secretary of the NBA-SBL Council. I was subsequently elected as Vice-Chairman in August 2014 and then as Chairman in August 2016, after which I handed over to the current Chairman, Seni Adio, SAN, in August 2018 albeit I remain a member of the Council.
My two-year tenure as Chairman of the NBA-SBL was eventful and impactful. In keeping with its objectives of engendering the professional development of Nigerian commercial lawyers and raising the level of business law practice in Nigeria, the NBA-SBL, under my leadership and with the immense support of my colleagues in Council, was able to achieve, among other things, the following:
expanding the frontiers of legal practice by creating several additional subject-matter specific committees that were, and remain, actively focused on new areas of legal practice with each committee organising periodic seminars and other capacity building programmes across the country for members, with facilitators drawn from leading international law firms, Nigerian law firms and corporate organisations;
organising two world-class NBA-SBL Conferences (2017 and 2018) at which attendees had incisive and enriching sessions, knowledge exchange and extensive networking opportunities with lawyers, clients and prospective clients;
organising, in partnership with the International Bar Association, a free training seminar for over 100 young lawyers on the fundamentals of International Legal Business Practice;
setting up SBL Clubs in six universities across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria to expand the horizon of law students and enable them, at a foundational level, to develop appropriate interest in contemporary areas of law practice;
establishing a partnership with the National Assembly and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, with support from the UK Department for International Development (UK DFID), to create the National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable (NASSBER) as a platform for the legislature and the private sector to engage, deliberate and take action on a framework for improving the Nigerian business environment. That partnership resulted in a comprehensive review of the institutional, regulatory, legislative and associated instruments affecting businesses in Nigeria;
collaborating with the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council on the ease of doing business in Nigeria which involved the review of extant laws and regulations and the monitoring of the productivity and response time of Ministries, Departments and Agencies including the Corporate Affairs Commission; and
Inaugurating the Corporate Counsel Committee for inhouse counsel and setting up a Task Force led by Mr. Ayuli Jemide to determine the scope of legal work that is statutorily prescribed to be the exclusive preserve of Nigerian lawyers and to work out modalities for enforcing such laws.
