NBA Women’s Forum to Tackle Gender Bias at 2022 Conference

The Nigerian Bar Association Women Forum  has chosen “The ‘Invisible Hand’ of Gender Bias: Championing Collective Change” as the theme for its 2nd Annual International Women’s Day Conference scheduled for March 31, 2022.

The Forum has lined up six insightful and inspiring sessions with a total of 25 speakers, carefully selected from an array of remarkable and respected Lawyers who have recorded noteworthy strides in their different spheres of legal practice. The theme of the Conference will focus on the underlying gender bias in the legal profession, and how it influences individual behaviours that generate, legitimise, and mask broad patterns of inequality, according to the organisers.

NBAWF also announced that the First Lady of Imo State, Her Excellency, Chief (Mrs) Chioma Uzodimma (also a Lawyer) is headlining the sponsorship of the event.  

His Royal Highness, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor and 14th Emir of Kano, has been confirmed to deliver the Keynote Address at the Conference, which will hold physically at Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, with some participants joining virtually. 

Olumide A. Akpata, NBA President, will give the opening remarks at the Conference, while Prof Oluyemisi Bamgbose, SAN, Chairperson, NBA Women Forum, will deliver the welcome address.

The Conference organisers said the sessions will underscore the continued importance of women’s collective work to address ‘invisible’, as well as visible biases.

The first session will be: “Hidden Biases in Courtroom Dynamics: Gender and the Judiciary”  

The second session, “Rising to the Occasion: Leadership from the Eyes of Contemporary Young Women”.

The third session is titled, “Advancing Society: The National Assembly as a Friend or Foe?”   

One of the sessions, “Shattering Stereotypes: Heels in the Boardroom – A Case for Navigating or Negotiating the Corporate Ladder”, will be moderated by Cecilia Akintomide, former Vice President, AfDB, will have as panellists Tonye Patrick Cole, former MD, Sahara Group; Ifeoma Utah, General Counsel, MTN; Dupe Olusola, Managing Director/CEO, Transcorp Hotels Plc; Sesan Suleiman, Managing Counsel, Templars; and Adewunmi Alode, Company Secretary, Lafarge.

To bring the Conference to a close, the final session will be a debate, which promises to engender thoughts on the necessity or otherwise of the employment of quotas as a measure towards achieving gender diversity in the legal profession.