Aerudite lawyer, and former NBA President Mr. O. C. J. Okocha was among guests who spoke Wednesday evening at a Banquet hosted for the President-Elect Bola Tinubu by the Rivers State Governor Nyessom Wike.
Right in the middle of the event Okocha openly applauded some of the sterling achievements of the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as the Attorney General of Lagos between 1999 and 2007.
Addressing the President-Elect directly at the Banquet Okocha said Osinbajo revolutionized the judiciary in Lagos State when “you were governor and that is the template that most of us have copied in amending our rules of court and now have what we call front-loading, Yemi did that and revolutionized the judiciary in Lagos state, which we have tried to copy.”
That 30-second video of Okocha has now gone viral on social media with many Twitter users now using the video in several posts on their walls and “Yemi Did That” has been trending on Social Media.
Okocha is right as he himself was a former Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice of Rivers State.
He was one of the States Attorney-Generals who followed the new standards set up by Osinbajo.
Osinbajo had served as Attorney-General while Tinubu was Governor in Lagos State between 1999-2007.
Last year, another former NBA President Olisa Agbakoba and a Supreme Court Justice Amina Augie, JSC had given a similar commendations praising the Vice President for his contributions to the transformation of the Lagos State judiciary during his tenure as Attorney General.
Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba, SAN and Justice Amina Augie, JSC, in separate remarks at the opening of the 2022 Justice Sector Summit, in Abuja, recalled the efforts made by Prof. Osinbajo in driving judicial reforms in Lagos.
Moderating a panel discussion at the summit which had the VP in attendance, Agbakoba described the VP as his hero especially in leading the charge for justice sector transformation in Nigeria.
According to him, “two heroes that I have, one is actually the Vice President, as Attorney General of Lagos State, you delivered quick and straight to the point, and things worked.”
The former NBA President noted that as Attorney General in Lagos State, the VP won the hearts of many through his pragmatic leadership of the justice sector in the State.
Corroborating the views of Agbakoba, Justice Augie noted that during his tenure as Attorney General of Lagos State, the VP “did a wonderful job and things worked well at the time”.
The Justice of the Supreme Court explained that “in those days, when our Vice President was Attorney General of Lagos State, I participated in at least 3 stakeholders’ forum in which papers were presented on what the government wanted to do in the justice sector in Lagos. Each time before he came up with a new law like the one on Civil Procedure and the rest of them, they held stakeholders’ forum and got contributions from everyone.
“They had a sort of synergy and it worked for everybody, and before you knew it, Lagos State would have come up with a new law that becomes a template that other states now followed.”
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