Mr. Asue Ighodalo is Chairman of the Council of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Section on Business Law (SBL). In this interview with Legal Editor John Austin Unachukwu, he speaks on his tenure and SBL’s yearly conference which begins in Abuja tomorrow.

As Chairman of the NBA Section on Business Law (SBL) for the past two years, what has been your experience?

First of all, I would like to say that it has been a great privilege for me to serve as the Chairman of Council of the SBL and pilot the affairs of the Section for two years. I have had the opportunity to interact extensively with my colleagues and to lead a section of the NBA that is very dynamic, comprising hard working and innovative practitioners. I am grateful for the opportunity given me by the President and the National Executive Committee of the NBA, the Council and the members of the SBL to serve first as the Vice-Chairman for two years and then as the chairman for another term of two years. It has really been a wonderful, but humbling experience heading an organisation of colleagues and peers.

So, what has it been like?

I will like to say that my experience for the last two years has been very enriching and I am truly grateful for that experience, the opportunity to serve and to put in place certain of my own ideas as to the way the SBL should progress. I can say that my two years has been more or less a continuum from Mr. Gbenga Oyebode’s two years which was the two years before mine.  I served with Mr. Oyebode as the Vice- Chairman of the Section when he was the Chairman. We enhanced and strengthened our capacities in particular, the training of our younger lawyers and also our older lawyers who need to constantly refresh. We have created a very strong training committee under the dynamic chairmanship of Mr. Deoye Adefulu. I would like to thank all the members of that committee for the wonderful work they have done. We have thrown up and showcased the capacity of the SBL to assist in improving the ability and capacity of our lawyers. I think that we have done very well on the area of training.

Which other committees made your tenure memorable?

We also set up a committee on publicity and research which is chaired by Ms. Theodora Kio-Lawson. That committee has also worked very hard and has helped in publicising the activities of the section and has also created two active virtual journals, a monthly journal and a quarterly journal.

The SBL under your chairmanship acquired and furnished a new office in Lagos. How did you get this office?

We used to cohabit with the NBA at the national headquarters when the NBA was in Lagos; but when it moved to Abuja, we had to look for our own accommodation. We found a purpose-built accommodation in South-West Ikoyi, Lagos where our secretariat is now located. We have equipped the office; it is indeed a state of the art office and I am very proud we have a home. We have also strengthened the capacity of our secretariat and I thank all those who have played a key role in getting the office, equipping the office and strengthening our secretariat.

What efforts have you made to improve our commercial laws and improve the cost of doing business in Nigeria?

We have increased our interaction with the National Assembly. We are a bit more active now in working with the National Assembly, in looking at draft bills, and coming up with our own ideas, views and commentaries on these draft bills. I like to thank all the members of the committees that I have called upon at short notice to intervene and to represent us at public hearings and to propagate SBL’s views on a lot of these bills that are on their way to being enacted into laws. We have been working with the Senate, DFID, NESG, Enable and their appointed consultants, led by Prof Paul Idornigie (SAN) reviewing business and commercial laws that need to be amended, repealed and new ones enacted to create an enabling business environment and enhance growth. I will like to thank the Senate, particularly the Senate President for the foresight and hard work that has gone into this. It is fundamental that we improve our business climate. The way things are going, we need to create the kind of environment where we have serious business people coming to invest in Nigeria. From where we are today, it appears to be an up hill task but if we start by or amending or repealing our outdated and investment unfriendly laws the environment will be more conducive and we will be able to follow the footsteps of countries like Georgia who have been  able to move from low rankings in the ease of doing business index to very high rankings,  among the top 10. I think that it is doable, we just need to be focused. I commend the work that the Senate has been doing in this regard and also the House of Representatives. As you are aware, recently there was a National Assembly joint forum with Capital Markets Operators, looking at Capital Market laws. I view this as a proactive intervention. The SBL has been involved in different ways in these interventions.

 What was the outcome of your visit to Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) Regustrar-General ?

The Council of the SBL took a decision to meet with regulators and open up avenues of dialogue and collaboration. We decided to start with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). We met with the Registrar General and his executives to discuss areas where we can collaborate to make the CAC even more user friendly and also ensure our colleagues act appropriately in accessing the CAC. I thank the Registrar General of the CAC who has been extremely accommodating, understanding and collaborative. We have a joint working  committee of the SBL and the CAC, they meet periodically  nearly every month where we bring the issues from practitioners forward to our regulator the CAC,  the CAC brings up its own issues and we try to synchronise the issues so that we can have a better structured, more active, more understanding CAC that is available to efficiently  assist lawyers in their business . We have also worked jointly with the CAC to put together certain training activities. I hope that this will collaboration will sustain. It is one of the things I will like to uphold as a success story in the last two years and we are of the hope that we will replicate this with one or two other regulator. I am hoping that with that kind of interface, the relationship between practitioners and regulators will improve and be strengthen.

The annual general conference of the SBL begins in Abuja tomorrow. What should those attending expect?

The theme of our conference this year is Law reform and economic development that dovetails into what I discussed earlier, the work of the National Assembly in looking to reforms in making laws. If we have well reformed, effectively enacted, appropriate and compliant laws, It will then be easier for those who seek to come and invest in our economy to do so. Appropriate fit for purpose laws will enhance capital formations, infrastructure development, education, security and assure prompt and effective dispute resolution processes. So we picked this specific theme for this year’s conference.

We will have 10 plenary sessions discussing different aspects of law reform and how law reform will impact economic development. Our opening ceremony dinner will have the Vice-President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), GCON who himself is a major law  reform agent as our Guest Speaker and Special Guest of Honour. His work as the Attorney-General of Lagos State speaks for itself. Even before then, his work as the Special Adviser to the Attorney-General of the Federation in the 80s speaks for itself. We will have him speaking to us at the opening ceremony Dinner, that is 7.30 pm tomorrow, in Abuja. The chairman of that session will be the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed,  and  the special guest will be the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN).

The dinner will be our opening ceremony. On Thursday, we will have a session on the theme of the conference which is law reform and economic development. We will have four speakers at this session examining the theme from different aspects. I look forward to a well packaged and intellectually stimulating session.

Who will be the chairman of this session?

The chairman of the session will be Mr. Fola Adeola who was carefully selected as the chairman of that session because of his own hands on work in the area of law reform which greatly impacted our economy.  You will recall that he was the chairman of the pension reform committee, that particular committee wrote the current Pension Act. Thereafter, he then became the pioneer chairman of the Pension Commission. Because of the hands on experience that he has, we thought that on this issue of law reform and economic development, there could be no better person to chair the session. We then have nine other sessions including our session two on managing Nigeria’s economy. Our lead speaker for that session will be The Honorable Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and we have a panel of seasoned and experienced economic operators to review and discuss the economy with he. These include Mr. Alex Oti, Mrs. Peju Adebajo, Dr. Doyin Salami and the managing Director of Airtel Mr. Segun Ogunsanya.

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