Annual Dinner & Scholarship Awards: BOSAN Announces 2021 Undergraduate Scholars [IN FULL]

*VP Osinbajo Berates SANs Who Demean the Honour of the Rank

The Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (BOSAN) has announced winners of its scholarships for the year 2021. The winners who were announced and published at the Annual Dinner of the Body held on Saturday, 29^th January, 2021 emerged after a rigorous selection and examination process.

In its remark sighted by TheNigeriaLawyer, the scholarship sub-committee of BOSAN chaired by Dele Adesina, SAN, FCIArb cited the BOSAN’s concern about falling standards of practice in the Legal Profession and the need to arrest the situation as the basis for introducing the scholarship program. In his words; “The Scholarship Program is an initiative of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria hereinafter referred to as BOSAN. Concerned about the falling standard of practice in the Legal Profession and the need to take steps to arrest the situation, BOSAN creatively established this initiative.”

The maiden award was held in 2019 with five scholars – Bukola Fatimat Alada, Comfort Ngugher, Chioma Echebiri, Unime Anieti Akpan and Olajumoke Janet Sorungbe emerging as maiden winners. The award goes with a winning prize of N500,000 (Five Hundred Thousand Naira) at the Nigerian Law School.

This year, there were 117 nominations from 34 universities across the country. Nominations are submitted through the Deans of Law for students who meet the requirements which include;

1. a) the student must be in his or her 400 level.
2. b) the students being nominated must be on a CGPA of 4.5 or above on the scale of 5.0 or equivalent for institutions which are not on 5 grade point.
3. c) The students being nominated must have consistently demonstrated good character, honesty and integrity throughout his or her period at the University and this record must be maintained at the Law School.

Nominations for the awards commenced from May 17, 2021 to June 30, 2021 and 117 students were nominated were nominated from 34 universities spread nationwide. However, 114 of the nominated students met the cut-off requirements for the scheme and these 114 were selected for the qualifying examination.

After an orientation on the procedure for the examination was conducted on the 22^nd of July under the supervision of Prof. Oluyemisi Bamgbose SAN, the nominees wrote the exam which had 100 objective questions and 10 written essay questions (to answer 5 of choice) selected by the sub-committee. The questions were drawn up by Prof. Fabian Ajogwu SAN, Prof. Yemisi Bamgbose SAN, Prof. Lanre Onadeko SAN, Prof Lanre Fabgbohun SAN, and Ms. Funke Aboyade SAN.

Sequel to the online examination, a physical oral interview was held on the 14^th of December at the Conference Hall, Nigerian Law School, Lagos Campus, Victoria Island. The panel of interview was made up of:

i) Mr Dele Adesina SAN – Chairman, Sub-Committee

ii) Mr. Sebastine Hon SAN – Legal Practitioner based in Jos/Abuja

iii) Mr. Liman Hassan SAN – Lafia based Legal Practitioner and Per-time Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Nasarawa State University.

iv) Prof. Oluyemisi Bamgbose SAN (Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos)

v) Prof. Ayodele Atsenuwa (Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos).

At the end of the interview, the panel recommended the following candidates who attained the highest score on an average of both the aptitude test and oral interview for the BOSAN Scholarship Award of 2021.

1.Abogu Joy Nneoma – University of Ibadan, 2. Yesufu Simioluwa Rhoda – Babcock University, 3. Njoku Chisom Fortunatus – Rivers State University, 4. Akinmusire Sina Victor – Lagos State University, and 5. Enwelum Daniel Chukwudi – University of Ibadan.

The Chairman of the Scholarship Program Sub-Committee utilised the medium to appreciate members of the sub-committee for their tireless support for the scheme and their commitment to the transparency and integrity of the process.

The Chairman, Dinner Sub-Committee, who is the former President of the NBA, Paul Usoro, SAN, in his remark, congratulated the new members who elevated were elevated to the inner Bar.

“We celebrate our latest  members, the newly elevated Senior Advocates of Nigeria who joined the ranj in November.

“We also celebrate our members who were elevated in 2020 but who were robbed of this annual receptton because of the ravaging COVID 19 pandemic which locked us all down that year.

“Your elevation is a testimony to your scholarship, grit, intellect, hard work and much more.  This is the result of all those endless day and nights of oil and sweat and we all rejoice with you.  You must  however not see your elevation as an end.

“It is a call to higher duties, duty to clients, the profession,  duty as priest in the temple of justice, duty to justice administration, duty to our beloved country, Nigeria, duty to society at large.

TheNigeriaLawyer had earlier reported that the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo SAN graced the BOSAN Annual Dinner held on Saturday, 29^th January, 2022. In the his remarks, the Vice President emphasised on the need for the legal profession to continually uplift its prominence and prestige. He also urged BOSAN to ensure continuous discipline among its members, noting that “the strength of character and integrity of our body could, to a large extent, be called into question by the transgressions