SBL AGM commits to a more inclusive section for old and new members

Old and new members of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Section on Business Law (SBL), irrespective of their location, will henceforth enjoy a more inclusive SBL with value-added training and capacity building as part of the value offers of the section.

This is a fallout of the Annual General Meeting of the Section which took place at the just concluded 2015 annual conference of the NBA.

The Chairman of the Section, Asue Ighodalo, who disclosed several value-added offers for SBL members while presenting the Section’s annual report for August 2014-August 2015, pledged the Section’s commitment and resolve to spread its training and capacity building programmes to include young and mid-level members across the states of the federation.

While briefing members on the activities of the section in the last one year, Ighodalo also informed them about the newly inaugurated training committee of the SBL.

“To further enhance the capacity of members, we set up a committee dedicated to training, chaired by Dr. Adeoye Adefulu of Adefulu and Odujinrin. The Committee has identified the training needs of SBL members and has developed a curriculum.  So far, the Committee has organised two training session since its establishment early this year, and it still has a long list of training courses for the rest of the year,” he said.

To achieve its capacity building goals and objectives, the section plans also to improve its database to ensure no member is left out of its value offers.

“We are working towards improving and enhancing our database at this time. The recently concluded Conference as well as our training programmes and seminars, also provided us with another opportunity to increase and diversify our membership, as well as update our membership database,” the SBL chair said.

He further explained that this move was to give all members a good chance to leverage on all training and networking opportunities.

“We want to ensure that they are more involved and included in all our programmes and events,” he said.

In a bid to be more inclusive and to ensure all members benefit from the SBL’s value offers, the Section in the first quarter of this year moved to strengthen its relationship with its Companies’ General and Corporate Counsel when it held an exclusive dinner in their honour. The occasion afforded the In-house and General members an opportunity to engage in constructive and positive exchange of ideas with their external counterparts on a variety of issues aimed at collaborations that will promote the objectives of the SBL and the enhancement of its individual members.

The Council of the SBL also announced at the AGM that the SBL was looking to strengthen its secretariat with the hope of enhancing its operations to cater for a larger sector.

Fielding questions from pressmen after the AGM, the SBL Chair spoke about the 2015 conference, which was ongoing at the time.

“The conference on average was well organised, and was a better AGC on so many levels,” he said.

He praised the President of NBA, Augustine Alegeh SAN, and the conference organising committee for doing a great job.

“This is the first time in the history of the Bar that we had a sitting President and Vice President attending the opening ceremony together. I think the leader of the bar; Augustine Alegeh, SAN and his national officers, with the support of the Conference Planning Committee have done very well. I’m very impressed with the work that has been done and the developments in the bar so far.  You could see the unity and togetherness with which everyone spoke at the conference. There was indeed a lot of camaraderie among colleagues. This is a good indication of progress within the bar,” Ighodalo said.

The Section on Business Law is the specialist and training arm of NBA set up primarily to engender the professional development of Nigerian commercial lawyers, whilst raising the level of business law practice in Nigeria.

Since its establishment in 2005, it has remained the driving force of the Section, and we are continually striving to surpass the past achievements of our Section, through amongst other things, organizing on a more frequent basis substantive and interesting activities across the country.