AKPATA MAKES PROMISE TO NIGERIAN LAWYERS IN LETTER, OUTLINES ACHIEVEMENTS AS SBL CHAIR

With only six days to what is poised to be the most keenly contested NBA national elections in the last decade, frontline Presidential candidate, Olumide Akpata, has written to lawyers across Nigeria in this third of the series of letters he has written in the last few weeks. In this letter, he outlines his track record of producing positive and verifiable results for the legal profession while serving as Chairman of the NBA Section of Business Law. His letter reads:

“In the last few weeks, I have written a number of letters to you outlining some of the plans and policies that I want to pursue should I, with your support, become the President of the NBA. In making these promises, I am encouraged by the fact that in other capacities that I have been fortunate to lead, I discharged, with the support of my team, most of the plans that we set out to achieve, and like Mark Spitz said, past performance speaks a tremendous amount about one’s ability and likelihood for success.

In addition to the successes recorded in other offices that I have been privileged to hold, a recent and relevant example of my stewardship at the Bar is my time as Chairman of the Section on Business Law of the Nigerian Bar Association (“NBA-SBL”) from 2016 to 2018. In that capacity, with the support of the Council and members of the NBA-SBL, our administration, in delivering on its mandate, was able to achieve the following in our two-year term:

1. Law Reform Initiatives – established a partnership with the National Assembly, Nigerian Economic Summit Group and UK Department for International Development to create the National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable (NASSBER) as a platform for the legislature and the private sector to engage and take action on a comprehensive review of several policies, laws and legislative instruments affecting businesses in Nigeria.
2. Ease of Doing Business – collaborating with the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) on the ease of doing business which involved the review of extant laws and regulations that moved Nigeria several points upwards on the World Bank’s ease of doing business index.
3. Monitoring Progress at MDAs – monitoring, in partnership with PEBEC, the productivity and response time of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (including the CAC) on various tasks and taking actions on a framework that will improve Nigeria’s business environment.
4. Enhancing Inclusiveness – inaugurated the Corporate Counsel Committee for in-house counsel to ensure inclusiveness. We also created the position of NBA-SBL Zonal Officers (North, East and West) with the appointment of respective officers for each zone to mobilise membership and collaborate with NBA Branches across the country. This was intended to decentralise the activities of the NBA-SBL and help ensure that some of the NBA-SBL programmes were taken to other cities outside of Lagos and Abuja.
5. Preparing for the Future – established NBA-SBL Clubs in six universities across the six geopolitical zones to expand the horizon of law students and enable them, to develop appropriate foundational level interest in contemporary areas of law practice that will make them more useful to clients and the economy.
6. Capacity Building – organised, in partnership with the International Bar Association, a free training for over 100 young lawyers on the fundamentals of International Legal Business Practice; provided a scholarship to 50 young lawyers to enable them participate in a specially designed training on “Medicine, Accountability and Law” at which the young participants were exposed to the ethical and legal implications of aspects of medical practice in Nigeria; and organised a-2-day Business Development Workshop facilitated by a UK Consultant for all categories of lawyers.
7. Encouraging Specialised Competencies and Knowledge Development – sponsored 70 young lawyers across Nigeria to attend the 2017 Annual Business Law Conference of the NBA-SBL to enable them network, develop knowledge, build useful professional relationships and become more commercially aware. Also organised different sessions focused on impact of disruptive technology on the practice of law, globalisation and the prospects of open borders on the provision of legal services, building business development skills for lawyers and leveraging technology to improve service delivery, law firm management and professional development.
8. Encouraging Practical Legal Training – set the stage for the establishment of a three-month intensive commercial law practice academy for interested lawyers to be taught the finer and practical points of emerging but extremely relevant areas of law which the market needs. Also developed a Business Law Competency Framework (which was recently launched by the current NBA-SBL Council) to enable business lawyers to know and gauge what is expected of them at their various levels in terms of soft skills, technical skills, and general legal competencies and to enable them chart and develop their career path.
9. Expanding the Frontiers of Law Practice – created several additional subject-matter specific committees actively focused on new areas of legal practice with each committee organising capacity building programmes across the country.
10. Partnership and Scholarship for Further Education – instituted a scholarship programme called the “SBL Scholars Programme” in partnership with the Indiana University School of Law, USA to assist young lawyers to pursue an LL.M program at the institution.
11. Protecting the Lawyers’ Business to Increase Earning Capacity – set up a Task Force 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.
12. Impactful Conferences – organised two world-class NBA-SBL Conferences with incisive and enriching sessions, knowledge exchange and extensive networking opportunities.

These milestones that we were able to achieve in my two years in office give credence to the fact that with commitment, availability, political will, institutional support, membership backing and deliberate planning, a two-year term is sufficient to make significant and long-lasting impact. I believe that with your support for me as President of the NBA, we can achieve more at the level of the larger Bar.

My full manifesto provides further details on how we will achieve my plans for the NBA. Also, if you haven’t already done so, I also encourage you to complete your verification on the NBA website.

Please accept the assurances of my best regards and continue to have a productive and pleasant week.

OLUMIDE AKPATA”