Ejiofor Alike
As parts of their determination to engage reputable local and international law firms to defend their legal and politically-motivated cases, the Aiteo Group and its Executive Vice Chairman, Mr. Benedict Peters have appointed top Nigerian lawyers to complement their international representation efforts within the country.
The team, led by Chief Wole Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), comprises senior lawyers – Kanu Agabi (SAN) and Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN), both former Attorneys General and Ministers of Justice of the Federation.
Other senior lawyers in the team include, renowned constitutional and human rights lawyer Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN, Messrs Paul Usoro (SAN), Rotimi Ogunesi (SAN) and A U Mustapha (SAN).
Others lawyers include Ebenezer Obeya, Chief Andrew Oru, Mrs Boma Alabi, Messrs Chidi Nobis-Elendu, Emeka Ozoani and Joseph Nwatu.
Announcing these appointments in a statement yesterday, Aiteo Group’s Senior Manager in charge of Corporate Communications, Ndiana Matthew, described Olanipekun as Nigeria’s Avant-Garde lawyer, and the country’s leading trial lawyer.
Agabi, an accomplished litigator, served Nigeria twice as Attorney General as did Olujinmi whose core practice is also litigation.
Ozekhome’s reputation as one of Nigeria’s foremost Constitutional Law and Human Rights advocates draws from a lifelong career of fighting oppression and injustice through courts and social advocacy.
Usoro is a nationally acclaimed litigation and transaction expert whose core areas span the gamut of commercial law practice. Excellent all-rounders Ogunesi (of the stable of Abdullahi Ibrahim, SAN, also a former Attorney General of the Federation) and Mustapha make up the team of Senior Advocates. Others in the team include Security law expert Ebenezer Obeya, dual qualified and former President of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association Boma Alabi as well as the combative Andrew Oru.
Aiteo Group Executive Director and General Counsel, Andrew Onyearu, said in the statement that the company’s belief in the Rule of Law and the legal processes in Nigeria require engagement with both commitment and premium resources.
According to him, the company’s conviction in the infallibility of Nigeria’s judicial processes continues to be vindicated by judicial pronouncements deprecating the unjustified calumnious attacks on its business and personal outlook.
“Our respect for this process mandates that those who advocate positions on our behalf possess and demonstrate the type of world-class credentials that our lawyers clearly possess,†he said.
“At the fulcrum of this stance is that desire to ensure that the course of justice is charted with the utmost sense of application, responsibility and expertise,†he added.
“The Group has been adversely affected by a litany of unsustainable unlawful developments affecting both reputational and commercial integrity in a manner that has negatively impacted its operations. The Group can no longer allow this situation to continue and as such, has resolved to take steps to protect all its legal interests.
“Recent positive – and ground breaking – outcomes from judicial interventions that we have achieved serve as clear pointers about the direction that we are now pursuing. Increasing the successful utilisation of the judicial process in areas where we have been wronged will be the main objective of the team we have now put together,†he added.
According to him, the scope of the work to be undertaken by the team will span the breadth of contentious legal work.
“It is understood, specifically, that one of its early mandates is to review defamatory publications commonly referred to as “open source†materials in which Aiteo and Peters have been featured in the last few years and to redress these fabricated insinuations by all available means including court actions, a process which appears to have already started,†he added.
