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Former Ekiti State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Owoseni Ajayi, has urged young lawyers to consider going into politics to deepen the country’s democratic system and ensure stability in the polity.
Ajayi who urged lawyers to discountenance the popular saying that politics was a dirty game, said, “One of the key ways to succeed in a democratic setting is politics. Success as a legal practitioner and in service to the nation, ensuring the right things are done.”
The former attorney-general spoke on Monday during the 5th Young Lawyers Forum/Obafemi Adewale SAN Colloquium with the theme ‘Emerging opportunities for young lawyers: Self-discovery and entrepreneurship’ organized by the Nigerian Bar Association Young Lawyers Forum, Ado Ekiti Branch.
He advised young lawyers, “Go into politics, we don’t have enough lawyers in politics. Look at the National Assembly and the state houses of assembly, how many lawyers do we have there? They are not enough! Politics is not dirty, go to your constituencies and struggle for votes.”
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mazi Afam Osigwe, urged lawyers to be innovative and explore new opportunities in the practice to stay afloat and extend the legal profession in the face of the current economic realities.
Osigwe, who spoke in a lecture, titled, “Making a choice between succeeding and dying out”, said the legal profession was not insulated from the negative effect of the current economic recession.
According to him, the economic situation had brought about laying off of workers, government borrowing to fund budget, manufacturing sector recording losses and negative impact of insecurity on the inflow of foreign direct investment, the falling value of naira among others, hence the need for innovation on the part of lawyers.
He said that the present economic situation was a good time to look at the emerging areas of practice that lawyers can benefit from as well as what lawyers must do to ensure the businesses harness these emerging areas to succeed.
“To do this, lawyers must not only look beyond the known practice areas but look beyond them into unexplored areas wherever they may find themselves. To do this they must continually train and retrain themselves.
“Lawyers are increasingly deploying technology and other innovations to utilize before-now unknown opportunities in the legal profession. Lawyers must look beyond the usual ways the profession is being practised and seek to find new areas,” he said.
Also speaking, Adewale, a senior advocate, urged the young lawyers to embrace technology, saying, “With technology, you can be a lawyer or a professional and practise anywhere in the world because you can reach the ends of the world on the net.
“What is required is for young lawyers to be innovative, to think outside the box and to make sure that they take the opportunities that come to them because if the opportunities come and just pass away, you don’t make good use of it, you will still remain where you are.”
