By Mike Adeyemi
The emergence of Barr(Mrs) Folashade Bosede Aladeniyi as the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Ibadan branch is both thorough and divine, heralding a new dawn that is filled with hopes and expectations. It’s indeed a paradigm shift in the legal profession.
Aladeniyi is a deeply committed “BAR Woman” who had shown sufficient capacity in known areas of assigned responsibilities. A lawyer of almost three decades post-call. Long before she was decorated with the silk in 1995; Barrister (Mrs) Folashade Aladeniyi already had the gift of the garb.
Despite she was born with sliver spoon in the mouth, one of the striking things about the new NBA Chairperson Ibadan branch is her sense of humility which over time, she has shown that it is not just a facade thing, but deep inside. In spite she didn’t know me from Adam, Aladeniyi accorded me utmost esteem with full candour the first day I met her.
The Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Ibadan branch seems poised for major strides under her leadership as the new Executive sets up an ambitious plan of action. The ebullient woman had opened a new chapter, united and ready to lead the Bar as a vista of a new came aglow on the horizon.
The new NBA Chairperson, Folashade Aladeniyi, wasted no time to show she was a leader ready to deliver on her promises. With the Association totally united behind her with fervent spirit and a steely determination to help her achieve her goals, the Ikejile-Ijesha born legal luminary has perfected plans to put on paper the history of the Premier Bar for generation yet unborn.
Aladeniyi was also part of the National team of the NBA that approached the National Assembly for the enactment of a bill and order meant to improve the working condition of Nigerian Lawyers.
Just immediately she took over NBA Ibadan leadership barton last year, Aladeniyi set up committees to direct the affairs of the branch, to proffer solutions and bring ideas. The committees are also to look into the critical question of the welfare of members and to takes care of affairs of lawyers each time there is a breach of their fundamental rights.
The image of the NBA Ibadan is also of serious concern to Aladeniyi and her executive. Considering some emerging innuendos claims by other Bars that contending they had been in existence before the Ibadan Branch, hence trying to halter history.
Barrister Aladeniyi is braced up to begin an enthralling new story for the Premier Bar by engaging the service of libretto experts as she takes bold steps to rework the image of Ibadan Bar by putting facts and history on paper for generation to come.
This explains why the Chairperson and her new team of leaders created the Ad hoc Committee, NBA Ibadan indigent Committee to give the Bar a new look both in its physical structure and image before other Bars who look up to the Premier Bar as pacesetter.
Other committees in this quest to reconstruct the destiny of NBA Ibadan branch include Advocate Committee whose duty is to go to prisons to prosecute indigent cases , Human Right Committee that takes cares of affairs of lawyers each time there is a breach to their rights, alongside Welfare Committees.
The Chairperson stressed the urgent need for these committees to swing into action. She specifically enjoined the Committees to come up with an articulate, robust and befitting Programs, a well enunciated body of principles and precedents that will be without ambiguities for easy administering of the foremost Bar in Nigeria.
No doubt, Aladeniyi’s crystal achievements at the NBA Ibadan within the time under review have further deepens and affirmed the avowal call across the globe for equal participation of both genders in runnings of our society. It is indeed truer the axiom that what a man can do, a woman can do better. Aladeniyi robust manifestoes cum robust rejigging of NBA Ibadan branch, is affirmative to this proverbial profess.
But as it turned out, Folashade Aladeniyi fully prepared for a job she had taken several years to prepare for, and despite becoming the leader of the foremost Bar in Nigeria at one of the most inauspicious times in our recent history, indexed by the Economic downturns, pre and post General Elections cataclysm alongside unabated insecurity in the country —tripoli unprecedented events that would test particularly the Nigerian Bar Association’s Ibadan branch commitment to its mandate of promoting the Rule of Law and acting as the bulwark of the civil liberties of the citizenry.
Aladeniyi is a
classic exemplar or paragon of a Leader who understands that leadership is a public trust, and one which must be treated with the highest circumspection, I have watched with kin interest how her Administration has committed itself painfully to discharging the lofty promises made to Ibadan lawyers in her penultimate year Campaign Manifesto that ran a gamut of, The Ibadan Bar and its Members; the Bar and the Society; the Bar as an Institution; and the Future of the Premier Bar.
Since the historic emergence of the Administration, the word on the street, is that the “Ibadan NBA is back”. So it is that even the staunchest critics of the Administration have on more than one occasion, publicly conceded to the surpassing of their expectations by the Administration for whom it has been a busy day at the office since it came into the encumber.
Suffice to say that each of Aladeniyi’s ordinance clearly portrayed into specific action points, it would not be an exercise in embroidery to allude to the fact that her Leadership has so far, creditably acquitted itself in what has been a very challenging year. At the likelihood of toot too vague, some milieu may suffice for our resoluteness here.
Certainly, one area the Administration has probably been most visible is in its commitment to the welfare of Ibadan lawyers irrespective of their standing at the Bar. The interventions on this score are legion. I will only identify a handful of them.
Part of obvious evidence of Aladeniyi-led Administration’s commitment to this vast approval of welfare is the several interventions of her Excos to the infestation of assaults and harassment of lawyers in the course of their work, particularly when conjuring with law enforcement agencies.
As part of her efforts, the NBA Ibadan branch recently filed an application of Mandamus to compel the Nigerian Police to inquire into assault on two your legal practitioners. Her Administration further coerce into the security agents on the need to obey and respect the right of lawyers and ordinary citizens.
Too, her Administration also devised categorization of Renumeration Order for lawyers working within the cocoon. That is, how much to be paid if you want to employ a lawyer in your office relatively to the minimum wage bill. So, the NBA Ibadan have particular order in place that takes care of renumeration of salaries to pay for young lawyers now.
As we all know that women are powerful agents of change, and the far-reaching benefits of diversity and gender parity in leadership and decision-making are increasingly recognized in all spheres. Still, women continue to be vastly under-represented in decision-making in politics, businesses, and communities. The successfulness recorded so far by Aladeniyi at the Ibadan Bar is a clear attestation to the clarion call for all-encompassing women’s involvement in leadership position. Gone are the days when we esoterica women’s role to the kitchen.
It is also worthy to note here that its high time for other women lawyers in the likes of Folashade Aladeniyi to come out from their comfort zone and participate in the emancipation of the legal profession in Nigeria, particularly at a time when practitioners in the industry are bedeviled with lots of daunting challenges.
It is appalling that the legal profession that has enjoyed prestige and has been religiously revered with roll call of national heros today has been debased and relegated with a huge economic gulf separating members of the association. A profession that is expected to be the advocate of the common man in the temple of Justice today, is itself bedeviled by injustice and deficient in needed attention to welfarism of members, especially the young ones.
This challenge has exposed legal practitioners to ridicule and embarrassing situation. There have been various reports of breach of the fundamental human rights of lawyers, there are reports of Police harassment and molesting, unlawful and indiscriminate arrest and incarceration of members.
It is indeed imperative to note that favour from the Lord is what we need to be positioned on the path of fulfilling God’s call on one’s life. There is a great difference between a woman who has obtained favour from God and she who is barely standing on his personal merit in life. Empirical indices has shown that Aladeniyi has unequivocally obtained favoir from God. She acknowledged that God has been very merciful to her.
Standing on personal merit in life is characterised by struggle, hard labour, stress and all manner of difficulties. On the other hand, when we anchor on the supernatural, His grace distinguishes us and smoothens our course. To stand on grace is to stand on the glory of life.
Grace is the bedrock of divine promotion and favour. The NBA Ibadan Chairperson, Barr(Mrs) Folashade Aladeniyi is a product of grace who has distinguished herself in her professional callings through God’s subsisting grace elicited by a corresponding godliness on the part of the maiden. You only need God’s mercy and grace to come to terms with your fascinating dreams in life.
Folashade Aladeniyi’s life is a connotative depiction of how God can and has always raised and lifted faithful men and women from nothing to something, from celebration to greatness, from the stately home to the palace.
Mike Adeyemi is the Editor -In-Chief, The Fact Newspaper and he writes via mikeadeyemi2001@gmail.com
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