BusinessDay 21 Sep 2017

Thursday 21 September 2017
INDUSTRYFILE
Mediation seen as future for
dispute resolution in Nigeria
The young silk…
T
C002D5556
he Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen
on Monday this week, swore in 29 lawyers who
were conferred with the rank of Senior Advocate
of Nigeria (SAN). Among those sworn in was 37-year old
Kehinde Olamide Ogunwumiju (pictured above) who is
the youngest recipient of the prestigious award this year.
HIS PROFILE
Kehinde Olamide Ogunwumiju was born on December
24th 1981 to Justice Helen Moronkeji Ogunwumiju of
the Court of Appeal and Late Pharmacist Festus Kokumo
Ogunwumiju.
He started his early years in Ibadan at Omolewa nursery
and primary school and proceeded to international School
Ibadan for secondary education. He graduated from the
University of Ibadan in 2004 and was called to the Nigerian
Bar in 2005
He proceeded to the Northumbria University in England
for his masters and graduated in 2007.
He started his career as a Corp Member in AFe Babalola
chambers (Ibadan office) and later moved to the Abuja
office and rose to the Enviable position of a Partner in Afe
Babalola Chambers. He has since been involved in active
litigation. His areas of specialty include appeals, arbitration,
criminal litigation and election petitions.
Olamide is married to Tara Ogunwumiju and they are
blessed with a Son.
BUSINESS DAY
BDLegalBusiness
27
L-R: Osa Abiola Ezekiel, partner, Oakwell Partners; Amina Oyagbola, MD, AKMS Consulting; Caroline Etuk,
Director,Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse; Opeyemi Oke, Administrative Judge of Lagos High Court; Amanda Bucklow,
Keynote Speaker from UK; Osarieme Ezekiel, managing partner, Oakwell Partners, and Deji Adekunle, DG, Nigeria
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the conference in Lagos recently.
CHUKA UROKO
When experts and sundry stakeholders
in the profession gathered recently
for the second edition of the Mediation
Conference in Lagos recently, insights were
offered just as concerns were raised on mediation
as an informal conflict process or mechanism
for commercial conflicts resolution.
The mediation conference, an annual
event orgainsed by Oakwell Partners, a multidisciplinary
Commercial Law Firm, seeks to
highlight the advantages and benefits people
involved in disputes, civil or commercial,
derive from embracing mediation as against
litigation in resolving their differences.
This year’s edition with the theme, ‘Mediation:
A Core Business Process and Catalyst for
Growth’, attracted both international and local
legal professionals including Amanda Bucklow,
a renowned International Commercial
Mediator from the United Kingdom who has
over two decades of mediating complex cross
border commercial transactions in the private
and public sector.
Almost always, mediation is referred to
as an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
mechanism, but in her presentation, Bucklow
debunked that, saying the using of ‘alternative’
was wrong. “It is suggestive that the
mechanism is inferior and or less effective in
comparison to litigation which is seen as the
core process to resolving conflict; this perception
thus sometimes affects its acceptability”,
she explained.
She explained further that mediation skill
could be used to negotiate and assess every
area of the business process, citing examples
of mediation skills she had used to promote
the negotiation and execution of complex
projects from commencement to completion
in 12 weeks. According to her, the proper use
of mediation skill could accelerate and help
business communities attain their respective
business goals in a cost-effective way and
with speed.
Opeyemi Oke, the Administrative Judge of
Lagos High Court who represented the Chief
Judge of Lagos state, Oluwafunmilayo Olajumoke
Atilade, agreed, stressing that mediation
was the future for commercial disputes
resolution in modern societies, and that, more
than ever before, it has become necessary to
let the business community understand the
advantages of using mediation.
Disputes are expected to arise in a society
where there are business activities involving
individual, small scale and medium scale enterprises,
but in resolving these disputes, they
should embrace mediation which, Oke said,
saves time and money and promotes healthy
and mutual co-existence.
“Unlike litigation through which huge money
is lost in the processing of resolving disputes,
mediation is less expensive, time is also saved
and used to do other useful things, litigants
are saved the big and boring jargons from their
lawyers”, she said, adding that “amicable resolution
of cases, especially commercial disputes,
boosts investors confidence in an economy”.
Oke disclosed that the Lagos State judiciary
was working out a mechanism aimed to build
confidence in the state’s justice system, but
lamented that lawyers were busy looking for
ways to manipulate the process. “Mediation
is not taking away your source of income”, he
assured the lawyers, explaining that it rather
helps everybody by making ases and their
settlement easy.
To succeed in this crusade, Deji Adekunle,
the Director General of Nigerian Institute of Advanced
Legal Studies, canvassed mediation skills
for lawyers. He noted that lawyers were often too
possessive of case files and would always want
to keep those files alife for as long as possible.
Adekunle, a law professor, pointed out
however that despite the high points of mediation,
it still has its challenges. “Mediation
needs the consent of the litigant which some
people interpret to mean that he has a weak
case that he is not sure to win”, the professor
said, adding that the regulatory environment
is confusing for many sectors of the economy,
and even the regulators themselves have capacity
deficit.
Earlier in her welcome address, Osarieme
Ezekiel, Oakwewll’s Managing Partner, and a
UK-accredited mediatior , commended Lagos
State government for recognising mediation as
a mainstream justice administration solution.
She however, advised that mediation should
not be seen to be supplementary or subsidiary
to other methods of resolving disputes. “It can
be and is a holistic mechanism on its own, in
sync with the courts as validating authority of
course”, she posited.
PERSPECTIVE
Evaluating the regulation...
Continued from page 25
correct that illegal structures are sealed and
demolished from time to time but it is also the
case that, permits and approvals are obtained
without following due process, while buildings
are certified as fit for purpose without the due
diligence required to be conducted by the
relevant agencies.
Registration Procedures
Generally, ease of registration of title in
property has been recognized as a contributing
factor to the promotion of foreign investments
in developed and developing countries.
To this end, in 2015, property registration was
included in the annual World Bank’s Ease of
doing Business Report as one of the indices
for ranking participating countries.
In Nigeria, the process and costs of registration
of title in land vary from state to state.
One common factor however is that costs are
usually high and procedures, cumbersome.
On matters relating to record-keeping, availability
of information and costs of registration
however, Lagos State has advanced beyond
most states and is worthy of emulation by
others. Prior to January, 2015, the cost of perfection
of title was about 15% of the purchase
price and was reduced to 3% of the “fair market
value” of the property by an executive order
of the state government. Essentially however,
the effect of basing the costs on “fair market
value” was to reduce the costs within certain
geographical locations while increasing the
costs by over 300% in other areas. For one
thing, whilst the cost of registration is rather
high and discourages purchasers from taking
steps to register their title, the level of bureaucracy
also creates difficulty for many. Not only
do transferees have to deal with unofficial fees,
obtaining information on land is sometimes
more tedious than necessary. Comparatively,
in Dubai which has a thriving real estate industry,
information is available at the tick of
the clock and by law, the cost of registration
is borne equally by both the seller and the
buyer, therefore reducing financial burden
in land acquisitions. Similarly, in the United
Kingdom, information on required documentation,
official fees (which are often nominal)
and procedure can be easily obtained over
the internet.
Land Grabbing
One recurring menace is having to deal
with hoodlums popularly known as Omo
Oniles. If you have acquired land or have
ever constructed a building in Lagos State,
encountering Omo Oniles is inevitable. They
are self-proclaimed land owners who take over
construction sites and unoccupied property
and harass lawful owners into parting away
with substantial sums of money in exchange
for peaceful possession. Their activities have
remained a recurring nightmare for property
owners.
To protect lawful owners from continuous
harassment and exploitation, the state government,
on 15th August 2016, passed the Lagos
State Properties Protection Law into law. The law
precludes individuals and unauthorized agencies
from demanding payment for construction
and also criminalizes the acts of the Omo Oniles.
The impact of this law is yet to be felt. But time
will determine whether the law will be effective
in the final event.
Waste Management
Again, Lagos is at the forefront of generating
waste as it reportedly generates 15,000 metric
tonnes daily, making it the largest waste producing
State in Nigeria. Waste Management has been
one major impediment to the development of
Lagos state. Scavenging also serves as a source of
livelihood for many. In highbrow areas like Ikoyi
and Victoria island, littering streets and dumping
wastes is not unusual. In line with the Clean
Lagos Initiative which was introduced to resolve
these issues, the Environmental Sanitation Law,
was passed in March 2017. Under the law, issues
of water generation, drainage maintenance and
licensing are catered for. Under the Initiative, an
efficient value chain of waste management and
environmental protection will be created.
Conclusion
It is true that Rome was not built in a day. It is
interesting to note however that similar to Lagos,
50 years prior to now, Dubai, was a fishing settlement
surrounded by creeks. Presently, Dubai
boasts of a booming real estate and tourism sector,
being the city with the 3rd highest number of sky
scrapers in the world, exotic hotels, some of the
best health facilities, good roads and transportation
system. Therefore, a mega city is achievable.
Some will argue that there are insufficient laws
to deal with the issues highlighted above. But the
laws exist. It is the efficiency of those laws that is
lacking due to factors such as corruption, lack
of political will and the lackadaisical nature
of some which are inherent in our systems.
To achieve the much desired status, these
concerns must be addressed holistically,
continuously and aggressively. Amidst the
current socio-economic challenges in Nigeria,
investors require a highly incentivized and
efficiently regulated business environment.
ADERONKE ALEX-ADEDIPE
STRACHAN PARTNERS