A BIG CONGRATULATIONS to the entire Great Ife Community as our own man and alumnus of this Great institution Justice Olukayode Ariwoola has just been sworn in as the new Acting Chief Justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He Graduated from this University at the age of 22 in 1980.
Justice Olukayode Ariwoola
“… private sexual images or films showing a particular person that are put on the internet by a former partner of that person, as an attempt to punish or harm them.”
The incessant re-occurrence of revenge porn in this age of social media calls for more awareness as to the rights of the victims and the consequences of such actions to the offenders. One of the many important roles of Law in a society is protecting and ensuring the rights of people in the given society. Likewise, to regulate the behavior of members of the society. As such, Section 37 of the 1999 constitution guarantees one of such rights, which is the right to privacy, providing that, “the privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations and telegraphic communications is hereby guaranteed.”
The moral standard of a country such as Nigeria is held in very high esteem and as such, morals, values and beliefs of Nigeria serve as underlying sources of its laws, hence, the need to protect it. Various laws and regulations have been put in place to protect public morality and to provide consequences to actions which negate public morality. Some of which include the Criminal Code Act, 1990 and the Cybercrime Act, 2015.
Section 1(a) of the Cybercrime Act, 2015 establishes that the objective of the Act is to, “provide an effective and unified legal, regulatory and institutional framework for the prohibition, prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of Cybercrimes in Nigeria.” It can therefore be said that revenge porn is also a cybercrime punishable by law as it involves the use of technology and communication media.
To serve as a determent for this act, Section 24(a) of the Cybercrime Act, 2015 provides that:” Any person who knowingly or intentionally sends a message or other matter by means of computer systems or network that is grossly offensive, pornographic or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character or causes any such messages or matter to be so sent; … commits an offence under this Act and shall be liable on conviction to a fine of not more than #7, 000, 000.00 or imprisonment for a term of not more than 3 years or to both such fine and imprisonment. This legal provision out rightly criminalizes and provides the punishments for revenge porn.
Following the above stated provision, Section 376 of the criminal Code Act reiterates the offence of blackmailing providing that: Any person who publishes, or threatens to publish, or offers to abstain from publishing, or offers to prevent the publication of defamatory matter, with intent to extort money or other property, or with intent to induce any person to give, confer, procure, to upon, or for, any person, any property or benefit of any kind, is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for seven years.” This clearly shows that blackmailing a person with nudes, sex tapes or any other pornographic material as well as publishing it is a criminal offence and is punishable by law.
Social media has become a tool used by deviants to carry out their personal vendetta against individuals in the society and this calls for the need to be aware of ones rights as well as the laws that protect them.
Ise Agbe nise ile wa
ENI KO SISE
A MAA JALE
Iwe kiko laisi oko ati ada
ko ipe o ko ipe o!
Agba kii wa loja, ki ori omo tuntun wo
(Where there are good elders, there is orderliness).
Pro bono originated from America when a fight broke out between British soldiers and American colonists and there was a bloodbath where five Americans were killed. After this issue, John Adams decided to offer free legal representation and defended the British soldiers who were on trial for the killings, and he won. The American Bar Association provides that every lawyer should provide at least 50 hours of pro bono legal service per year according to Model Rule 6.1, and other countries should imitate this rule.
Pro bono cases take advantage of the skills of legal professionals to defend those who cannot pay for legal representation. This service is offered to minorities and other relevant populations that lack access to justice because they lack the funds. When lawyers make a constant effort to modify and refine the legal system through persuasion or solicitation, they render legal assistance to institutions that uphold social causes and create room for phone conversations to get quick legal opinions.
Pro Bono Week is set aside nationwide in October to appreciate and celebrate the thousands of legal practitioners that offer professional skills and expertise to ensure others get access to justice. The legal field has the obligation to render pro bono assistance written in its guiding principles, unlike other professions.
Lawyers can be very expensive. They are highly trained professionals with in-demand skills that make them able to charge increasingly high fees for their time, knowledge, and services.However, lawyers offer a portion of their time with a willingness to help the less privileged. as well as protecting the rights of disadvantaged groups, especially women and children in Nigeria. For instance, punuka solicitors' help reaffirmed the right of the girl child to inherit her father’s property in UKEJE V UKEJE and won at all levels.
In Nigeria, the majority of indigent people lack access to legal representation. This is where pro bono lawyers step in as it is available in different areas of law like defense of prisoners on death row, accused awaiting trials, those threatened with loss of their place of abode, widows seeking a grant in respect of their spouse's property or when seeking divorce, amongst others.
In early 2020, Law 360 published a report that lawyers from more than 100 firms contributed nearly 5 million hours to pro bono services. Pro bono includes a broad range of volunteering with a legal angle. The most important reason to do pro bono work is to provide benefit to the community that might otherwise not be available. The cost of skilled legal services is very high and beyond the reach of many.
Pro bono work gives lawyers the opportunity to make their clients feel empowered and hopeful in situations that they thought were dire and hopeless.
Read: Biography of Chief Wole Olanipekun, OFR, SAN
Many lawyers refuse to take up pro bono cases because it can be tedious and cumbersome without pay without paying attention to the multiple advantages they will tend to enjoy. There are numerous reasons why you should take up pro bono representation in your legal practice as a lawyer. They include:
While we are talking about younger talent, pro bono helps young lawyers gain experience and build their skill sets. Tapping into younger lawyers’ energy and desire to help others is a win-win.
Doing pro bono work is good for the firm’s image. Nowadays, many if not most awards and recognitions for law firms require information about pro bono activity. If your firm can’t say it provides this community service, the likelihood of receiving such honors takes a dive.
This may be the most-important aspect of pro bono. Pro bono work frequently reminds lawyers that they are practicing law to help people. The energy frequently carries over into their regular practices as well.
Pro bono work frequently affords lawyers an opportunity to practice in an area of law that isn’t their usual focus. For example, when partnering with a legal aid clinic, a firm receives a list of cases that need lawyers and a corporate litigator might work on a benefits case; an IP lawyer might help someone with immigration status. Lawyers have the opportunity to brush up on law that they might not have considered since law school. Most find it rewarding, and sometimes even fun.
Along with opportunities to practice in areas outside their day-to-day work, pro bono cases also give lawyers the chance to work with other lawyers in their firms whom they may not otherwise know. That creates relationships and cross-firm opportunities in the future. It also helps lawyers build networks with other lawyers who are also working for legal aid foundations. That networking leads to business development, which also benefits the firm.
When your firm is recruiting new lawyers, particularly from younger generations, those potential new members frequently ask about the firm’s commitment to pro bono. You want to have at least a somewhat-active pro bono program if you hope to attract new talent in the next few years.
Dr. Babatunde Ajibade, SAN is the Managing Partner of S. P. A. Ajibade & Co. He was called to the Nigerian Bar in December 1989 and elevated to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria in December 2007. He was the first member of his Nigerian Law School set of 1989 to be so elevated.
Dr. Ajibade obtained an LL.B Degree from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in 1988. He obtained an LL.M Degree in Corporate and Commercial Law from King’s College, University of London in October 1990 and a Ph.D Degree in Private International Law from the same university in October 1996.
Dr. Ajibade is a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London, an International Practice Fellow of the International Bar Association and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, United Kingdom.
He combines the role of an advocate, a corporate/commercial solicitor, an administrator and a reformer and has excelled in each of these areas.
Dr. Ajibade is happily married with four children.
Dr. Ajibade, SAN is a strong advocate of a united Bar. He is of the strong persuasion that to solve the many challenges facing the profession, we must be united. According to Dr. Ajibade, SAN, the dividing lines we draw between the Bench and the Bar, between corporate/commercial lawyers and advocates, between law officers and the traditional Bar, between in-house counsel and external counsel, between young lawyers and senior lawyers and even the divisions across nationalities and ethnicities hamper rather than aid the course of the legal profession in Nigeria. While different segments of the profession have peculiar challenges, Dr. Ajibade, SAN believes that to successfully fight off threats to the rule of law, encroachment into our profession by foreign lawyers and other professions in Nigeria, and a myriad of other problems the legal profession faces, we must take steps to unite the Bar.
Dr. Babatunde Ajibade, SAN is the Managing Partner of S. P. A. Ajibade & Co. Since his admission to the Nigerian Bar in 1989, Dr. Ajibade has been engaged in active and full-time corporate and commercial practice, save for time taken out to pursue his postgraduate education. His area of academic specialization is in the field of Private International Law, with particular interest in the law relating to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.
Dr. Babatunde Ajibade, S.A.N., FCIArb is the Managing Partner of S. P. A. Ajibade & Co. Dr. Ajibade’s area of academic specialisation is in the field of Private International Law, with particular interest in the law relating to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments.
Dr. Ajibade has been involved in all aspects of corporate and commercial dispute resolution in Nigeria, and has expertise in litigation involving the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, banking law, intra-company shareholder disputes, as well as insolvency and insurance litigation. Dr. Ajibade also has extensive experience in all aspects of commercial arbitration, both domestic and international, as well as in investment treaty arbitration.
Significant Clients include Tidewater Marine International Inc, Technip S.A., Gitto Costruzioni Generali Limited, Cybele Cosmetics Limited
5. Honeywell Group Limited
6. 7UP Bottling Company Plc, Fan Milk Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and Sahara Group among others
Dr. Ajibade also has extensive experience in corporate commercial practice and company secretarial practice and has been involved in the Nigerian capital market as solicitor in several public offers of securities as well as in mergers and acquisitions. He is a founding member of the Capital Market Solicitors Association (CMSA). The CMSA was founded by Chief Anthony Idigbe, SAN in 2001 and Dr. Ajibade, SAN was its pioneer Secretary 2001 – 2007, its Vice-Chairman 2007 – 2011 and its Chairman 2011 – 2013. He was also a member of the Rules & Regulations Sub-Committee of SEC’s Capital Markets Committee from 2002 – 2004 and its Vice-Chairman from 2004-2010.
Some of the transactions he has been involved in are:
Led the team that acted as solicitors to Consolidated Breweries Plc in its merger with Nigerian Breweries Plc;
Led the team that represented SRM Partners Limited in its acquisition of First Registrars Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of FBN Holdings Plc;
Represented Broad Communications in the divestment of its shareholding in Airtel Nigeria Plc;
Represented a Nigerian insurance brokerage company in its acquisition by and merger with a multinational insurance company;
Led the team that represented First Bank of Nigeria Plc in its suspended N500 Billion debt issuance programme.
Dr. Ajibade has been appointed to the Boards of a number of high profile companies and organisations, including Vee Mobile Nigeria Limited (now Airtel Plc), Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, Lome, Togo, Fan Milk Nigeria Plc (a wholly owned subsidiary of Danone France), and the International Chamber of Commerce, Nigeria.
As regards his service to the bar, Dr. Ajibade, SAN’s career has been characterised by quiet and efficient service to the legal profession. A few instances of his involvements are listed below:
Chairman, Nominations Committee, NBA-SBL, 2011.
Chairman, Capital Market Solicitors Association between 2011-2013.
Member, NBA Liberalisation of Legal Services Working Group, 2012.
Chairman, Law Week Planning Committee NBA, Lagos Branch, 2014.
Chairman, Conference Planning Committee, NBA-SBL, 2016.
Vice-Chairman, NBA-SBL Committee on Banking, Finance and Insolvency, 2012 – 2016.
Chairman, Judiciary Relations Committee, NBA Lagos, 2019 till date.