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Legal expertise follows activity. Investors/ stakeholders and lawyers build trust and grow together over time by being genuinely interested in each other's growth and treating each other with mutual respect. Mr. Etomi used to tell us the story behind @nbasblofficial and it is...
... one that holds a lot of lesson for everyone. After taking office in 1999, ex-President Obasanjo started the process of placing the private sector at the commanding heights of the economy, and launched the privatisation process through the Bureau of Public Enterprise... 2/
At this point, government was the biggest consumer of legal services and the privatisation process definitely required a lot of legal advisory services. However, the most popular Nigerian lawyers at the time were known for public interest litigation, human rights and advocacy. 3/
It was not that there were no business lawyers. They just weren't as well known (and perhaps respected for their work). This meant most of government's briefs relating to investments and privatisation primarily went to foreign law firms. In some instances, the foreign law .... 4/
...firms hired the few Nigerian business lawyers as local counsel to assist with research but handled all drafting and negotiations alone. Many of those negotiations were held at the offices of these foreign law firms in London and New York etc. Concerned about the situation...5/
Nigeria's business lawyers like George Etomi, Paul & Mfon Usoro, Gbenga Oyebode, Asue Ighodalo and many others began to engage the BPE and other relevant government agencies on the need to trust Nigerian lawyers with advisory work. To take things further, they appealed...6/
...to and got the leadership of the @NigBarAssoc at the time to create the Section on Business Law to promote capacity building in business law and enhance stakeholder engagement for business lawyers. Thus, the @nbasblofficial was birthed alongside @nba_slp and @nba_spidel...7/
The @nbasblofficial with Mr. Etomi as the founding Chairman soon began to facilitate trainings on privatisation, concessions and project finance, among others. It soon launched an Annual Business Conference that attracted global investors in oil & gas, power, finance etc....8/
The top lawyers from the foreign law firms and the President of the International Bar Association were also invited to the annual Business Law Conference which often held in Abuja where it was easy to secure the attendance of relevant government officials. From observing the...9/
Conversations between the Nigerian business lawyers and their counterparts from foreign law firms, government officials were soon able to see that Nigerian lawyers had the capacity to advise them on various projects. They also realised they could cut legal costs without...10/
Sacrificing quality and so began the gradual shift towards engaging Nigerian law firms on major transactions. As soon as government started patronising Nigerian law firms, the foreign investors followed suit and started retaining local counsel even if they came with their...11
Advisers with whom they had built trust over time. The result of SBL's efforts are self-evident. For instance, during the power privatisation process in 2013, nearly all investors acquiring the Discos had foreign law firms as lead counsel with Nigerian law firms supporting...12/
With Nigerian legal advice. However, in 2020 when BPE privatised Afam Power and sold the company to Transcorp for N105bn, a transaction I was privileged to be a part of, two Nigerian law firms - @BanwoIghodalo and @OlaniwunAjayiLP - led the transaction end-to-end....13/
So, we have come full circle on project structuring, finance, capital markets and other areas. We will do the same with tech in due course. The concerns of the tech investors are noted but they need to be guided towards the truth that ecosystems evolve as @Mochievous said....14
And thankfully, we have a lot of smart and enthusiastic lawyers putting in the work in the technology space, desiring to grow with the investors and builders. With trust, time and experience, we will together build the future we want for Nigeria's tech ecosystem. 15/15
