Where there is uncertainty of laws, there will be uncertainty of investments-NBA President

The President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Augustine Alegeh, SAN has stated that the challenge for development across Africa is found in the uncertainty of its laws and its administration of justice system.

The president who spoke at the just concluded African Bar Leaders Conference in Lagos, Nigeria revealed that investors were skeptical of investing in environments where they are unsure or have no confidence in the laws and processes.

“An uncertainty of laws leads to the uncertainty of investments. Where there is an uncertainty with the judicial system, there would also be uncertainty of investments,” he said

According to him, the situation was not only peculiar to foreign investments, but was common to both local and foreign investors.

He said, “One would think ordinarily that this would be in specific reference to foreign investors but factually, this is not the case. There are several local investors who have lost confidence in the system and its processes and thus find it more efficient to invest in other climes where their investments would be protected.”

Urging other African bar leaders present to work towards successful justice sector reforms in their jurisdictions, he said, “If we do this successfully, we will be amazed at the transformations that would take place in our entire legal sector. This development would be all encompassing and would include poverty alleviation and eradication; to a level that would be almost unbelievable.”

He continued, “we need to work assiduously at this and that’s what we hope to achieve with this conference. We hope that in no time, we would have a conference that would be meaningful to Africa. We owe it a duty to our continent; to our generation and to ourselves to contribute positively to the development of our continent.”

On implementing resolutions from the conference across Africa, the host president had this to say:

“The world is increasingly becoming a global village. Any law that is good and economically efficient can be imbibed and implemented across the continent – be it of civil or common law origin or an Anglophone or francophone jurisdiction.

Clarifying further Alegeh said, “The era of allowing limitations due to common law or civil law is fast fading. What we have now are globalised trends in law; where countries are taking the best laws from other countries and applying these to their own jurisdictions – of course with modifications to suit their environments and peculiar situations.

“If we find that a civil or common law jurisdiction is doing something better than we are, we can learn from them and vice versa. For example Ghana came to Nigeria to pick up our Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) 12 years ago. Today, they have not only enacted that law, but they have amended it severally, while we are yet to even pass it as law. So it doesn’t matter at all” he said.

According to him, only restrictions of procedural law persists while for substantive law, people and jurisdictions now rely on global trends and best practices to make their laws and systems more efficient.

“As long as those laws work for them and engender development,” he added.

THEODORA KIO-LAWSON