The Pro-Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and Resort Group Chairman, Dr. Wale Babalakin (SAN), said education was continuous and stressed the need for all Nigerians to be “more equipped and more educated”.
Speaking at the ground breaking ceremony for the Lagos Bar Centre in Lekki Phase 1, Babalakin, who is the Chairman of the Project Committee, said: “Everybody in Nigeria needs to be more equipped and more educated. We have to improve the education of lawyers as well. That is the bedrock. When you have good education, you’ll be able to decipher what is good and what is bad and you’ll be able to make your demands. So, fundamentally, legal education is continuous. It doesn’t end with your becoming a lawyer or a SAN.”
On the project, the lawyer said for a long time, the Lagos chapter had wanted to provide for its members a comfortable Bar Centre that would be a centre “for ideas, meetings and coordinating the activities of the bar”.
The senior lawyer said he was proud that the project was taking off, adding that the project cost had been significantly “brought down without compromising integrity”.
“The selection of the consultants was done in a competitive way. We have brought cost down significantly without compromising quality. It is to the glory of God that we are able to lay this foundation on the last day in office of the Lagos NBA Chairman, Mr. Chukwuka Ikuazom, and I think it is only fair for what he has done. We intend to finish this project ahead of schedule.
“We have put the two contractors, who emerged, through a serious test and have insisted that all committee members should visit their projects and take a decision on who should emerge. We have kept to the very high standards of the bar and there is nobody in the committee that has any interest in any consultant or contractor. The selection process was done with total openness, with capacity, diligence and integrity as the yardstick for choosing the consultants. We made it clear at every stage that we were expending the association’s money and it must be accounted for to the last Kobo. “
