NBA delegation hold trade mission talks in Melbourne, Australia

The President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Abubakar Balarabe Mahmoud, SAN, on Monday March 20, led a delegation on a five-day Legal Services Trade Mission to Melbourne, Australia.

The President’s delegation started the mission with a high-level meeting with representatives of Australia-Africa Chambers of Commerce. The aim of the meeting was to formally introduce the Nigerian Bar Association to the Australia-Africa Chamber of Commerce and discuss areas of mutual interests and benefits to both organisations and their members.

Speaking with the Australian group, Mahmoud gave a brief overview of the NBA as the foremost professional membership organisation for legal practitioners in Nigeria. He talked about the implementation of the strategic plan, which focused on areas of Regulation, Representation, Re-engineering and Public Interest. The Public interests initiative relates to promotion of the rule of law, protection of human rights, and administration of Justice, conflict resolution and economic development.

He went further to mention the aims and objectives of the Legal Services Trade Mission which was to strengthen relations between the Australian and Nigerian Governments through Law, develop Partnerships between the Nigerian and Australian Bar and Business Associations, deepen the knowledge and expertise of Nigerian Lawyers on Common Law, create awareness about the Nigerian legal and business climate to Organizations interested in doing Business in Nigeria, create networking opportunities for Nigerian Lawyers and Law Firms.

Mahmoud also outlined the advantages of doing business in Nigeria which includes but not limited to high population, untapped Resources, increasing Consumer Base, little Price regulation except on things like fuel and fuel products, less restrictive business laws, little start-up capital required, less taxation, cheap labour

At a second meeting aimed at brokering the relationship between the Nigerian Bar Association and the Law Council of Australia and explore avenues for partnership between the organisations, the president of the Nigerian Bar Association, met with the Chief Executive Officer of Law Council of Australia, Mr. Jonathan Smithers.

He spoke about the ongoing initiative to reform the legal and regulatory architecture of the legal profession in Nigeria. He said “to address these legal and regulatory constraints, we developed a regulatory programme. We have set up the NBA Legal Profession Regulation Review Committee. One of the terms of reference of the committee is to review the current regulatory objectives and regulatory architecture of the legal profession and advise on its suitability to meet the current requirements for a robust sponsive and modern legal profession in Nigeria”

Thereafter, A.B. Mahmoud, SAN led the NBA delegation on a tour of Melbourne Central Business District and had experience in the public transport system in company of other delegates to the conference.

Other members of NBA delegation include Isiaka Abiola Olagunju, General Secretary of NBA, Oji Benedict, Third Vice President of NBA Murtala Abdul-Rasheed, Chief of Staff to the NBA President, Ms Zainab Animashaun, Adviser, Policy and Strategic Planning to the President, Aminu Sani Gandaya and Hapsatu Hamma Abdullahi.