How legal services can contribute to GDP – Anumnu

Ezenwa Anumnu is the chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Abuja chapter. In this interview, he speaks about his plans to open the legal market space for Abuja lawyers to enable them contribute to the country’s GDP. He also calls for the adoption of electronic voting in the country’s elections. Excerpts: Senior lawyers insist […]

Ezenwa Anumnu is the chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Abuja chapter. In this interview, he speaks about his plans to open the legal market space for Abuja lawyers to enable them contribute to the country’s GDP. He also calls for the adoption of electronic voting in the country’s elections. Excerpts:

Senior lawyers insist the legal profession can contribute to GDP. How?
Legal services are a stakeholder in the economy. In another country, legal services contribute to the country’s GDP. We are communicating with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to show us the contribution of law to the GDP. In the UK for instance, I understand legal services does up to three per cent of the GDP. It is the second highest employer of labour and contributes tangible amount of services to the economy.
Now we want that to be identified in Nigeria.  Like I said you need to know how to harness the opportunities in legal services.  In some countries, legal service is the mainstay of their economy. So in line with the diversification agenda of the present administration, we will bring what we can contribute. We also contribute to employment. If you empower or strengthen legal services, every firm will employ three to four lawyers and may be five, six support staff. And when you aggregate it, the ripple effect will be substantial.
We are looking at collaborating with government in various ways and see how we will build capacity, and regulations that will ease doing business in Nigeria.  We will work with the government to improve Nigeria’s ranking on the ‘ease of doing business index’.
 How would you assess the outcome of the recent Bar election?
I think the election is a pacesetter as the processes that led to it were quite transparent. From the processes and everything that went on, the NBA was committed to giving us a credible and transparent election. We all voted and voting was so easy. This has set an example even to the wider national election in Nigeria. We want the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to learn from this because it shows that it is possible for us to have credible elections in Nigeria. The NBA is a pacesetter and it has demonstrated that in this election that produced A.B. Mahmoud SAN as president.
Let me salute Austin Alegeh (SAN). He is trail-blazing, pacesetting, uncommon president of the NBA. He has raised the bar. I want to congratulate him for the opening of the new NBA House. History will judge him fairly in bringing one-man, one-vote, and through the stamp and seal policy he has chased away quacks from legal practice. I know that A.B. Mahmoud is eminently qualified to build on these legacies.
Do you subscribe to the view that the near universal suffrage under this election is attainable for Nigerians especially, in the diaspora and prison inmates?
I totally agree with it. Somebody like me voted from the comfort of my house. In this day and age of progress in the social media and Internet, I don’t see anything wrong in prison inmates and our brothers within and outside the country voting. All the 114 branches of the NBA voted in this election.
It is something I strongly recommend to be implemented at the national level to further improve our processes by which we will have a better way of doing things and less complaints, less election petitions and people will move on from the election into governance without being bogged down by election petitions and other distractions.
 After the election there have been some disputations between Gadzama and A.B. Mahmoud at the national level. And in Abuja, Benin and Lagos, the pattern is the same. What do you suggest for all these to be resolved?
I think the national election has set a standard for all branches to emulate. And going forward I can assure you that we will remove mediocre processes from our elections. I think some of the challenges they might have is perception of transparency. Having said that, people have a right to ventilate their opinions. But I also believe the majority will have their way. That is the essence of democracy.
It is also important to say that we have a new constitution. It is important for us to look at the constitutional provision on dispute resolution. These are well entrenched provisions and I encourage anyone that has some grievances to go through the dispute resolution mechanisms in our constitution. So I believe some of these misgivings would be put in proper perspective and resolved.
Can you share the programmes of your executive for lawyers?
We ran our campaign on empowering lawyers. What we mean is creating new practice opportunities, reclaiming back our practice. There are a lot capacity opportunities in legal practice. The challenge we have is that these opportunities are not well known or harnessed. So we intend to use the NBA Abuja as a case study and we will collaborate with other branches (Bwari and Kubwa) within the FCT to see how we can aggregate opportunities for lawyers. There are diverse opportunities in the various sectors.
In Abuja branch we have evolved new practice groups. The idea is to involve lawyers with interest in different areas and experience. For instance, we have the law and practice group in taxation. So if you have interest in tax we will encourage you to pursue your interest in that area. We will look for trainings and opportunities in that area. We will help them to specialise and build your skills in that area so that we will have people that can compete.
No matter what we do it will be hard to reduce the number of lawyers we churn out every year. But if you provide opportunities for them, it will make lawyers to be more competitive and enhance their welfare.
What we are running is a highly integrated welfare plan. It includes empowerment, capacity building, training and outlook to practice. We have a Law Firm Management Practice Group, Procurement Law and Practice Group. All the areas that hitherto were not looked into are going to be looked into to create specialised and skilled people in every area to create these opportunities for lawyers.
We also ran on high ethical values. My experience at the Rotary Club where I served as president also taught me that high ethical value is also a tool for business. We will insist on making standards; certain practices are unacceptable. We intend to wield the big stick because we must build a highly disciplined Bar.
We are also going to create networking opportunities for lawyers to meet with other professionals. It is generally to ensure that lawyers are in the front seat of economic activities in Nigeria. It is important because in legal practice, you have a pool of knowledge that cuts across every sector of the economy. This is what we want to project so that people outside will know we have these capacities.
We also want to expand our secretariat to make it more functional.
The NBA president-elect has enunciated similar programmes. How do you intend to work with him?
Yes, we find a common ground with A.B. Mahmoud (SAN), the incoming president of the Bar. I see us doing a lot of work with him. We have to carry along other branches. We have a wide network of 114 branches nationwide. We have to also look at a way to harmonise with the other branches.