NBA Sets Up Committee For The Implementation Of The African Continental Free Trade Area (“AfCFTA”) Agreement, Appoints Mfon Usoro As Chair

The Nigerian Bar Association has, in response to the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations (“NOTN”) and the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (“FMITI”,
set up a committee for the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (“AfCFTA”) Agreement.

In a statement signed by the NBA President, Paul Usoro, SAN, and made available to TheNigeriaLawyer (TNL), Mfon Usoro, a renowned trade law expert – would be chairing the committee.

Other members are George Etomi, Sen Adio, SAN Etc

Read the full details below

AFRICAN CONTINENTAL FREE TRADE AREA (“AfCFTA”) AGREEMENT IMPLEMENTATION AND PHASE I NEGOTIATIONS – SCHEDULE OF SPECIFIC COMMITMENTS ON TRADE IN SERVICES

1. The Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations (“NOTN”) by a letter dated 02 September 2019 invited the Nigerian Bar Association (“NBA”) to participate in the meetings on Nigeria’s Draft Schedule of Specific Commitments for the African Continental Free Trade Area (“AfCFTA”) Agreement as a member of the Nigerian Coalition of Services Industry. Sequel to that invitation, on 06 February 2020, NOTN published a nationwide circular inviting “inputs from relevant stakeholders on the ongoing AfCFTA Phase I Negotiations in 5 priority service sectors”.

2. Independent of the NOTN initiatives but apparently overarching them, the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (“FMITI”) on 20 February 2020 informed the NBA of “the constitution of a National Action Committee (‘NAC’) to oversee” the “implementation” of the AfCFTA Agreement and invited the NBA to nominate a representative that would serve on the AfCFTA NAC.

According to the FMITI letter, “the mandate of the NAC shall be to coordinate relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (‘MDAs’) and stakeholder groups to implement the trade readiness interventions detailed in the AfCFTA Impact and Readiness Assessment Report including projects, policies and programmes to: i. “enhance productivity, increase production and service capacities on priority sectors and grow export trade capabilities of Nigerian businesses; ii. “improve trade-related infrastructure especially power, road and port infrastructure; iii. “improve trade environment including trade facilitation, ease of doing business, and ensure alignment between trade, fiscal and monetary policies; iv. “ensure enforcement of domestic and international trade rules; and v. “amend existing Acts and enact new bills as may be required”.

I should mention that, AfCFTA negotiations on trade and services amongst member States, as notified by NOTN, is ongoing and implementation is scheduled to take off in July 2020 which necessitates urgency in the consultative process that the NBA is now embarking upon.

3. In response to both NOTN and FMITI letters, we nominated Mfon Usoro, a renowned trade law expert – her abbreviated profile is annexed to this Release and marked “Annexure A” – to represent the NBA both at the NOTN negotiation meetings and also at AfCFTA NAC. With Mfon’s assistance, we prepared and submitted to NOTN the attached interim NBA memorandum dated 14 February 2020 – “Annexure B” hereto – in response to NOTN’s advertised invitation for “inputs from relevant stakeholders on the ongoing AfCFTA Phase I Negotiations in 5 priority service sectors” which includes legal services. In acknowledgement of the far-reaching impact of these AfCFTA Phase 1 Negotiations, we pointed out in paragraph 5.4 of the NBA interim memorandum – “Annexure B” – that “the NBA is in the process of initiating formal consultations with all the relevant rule-making organs of the legal profession . . . on progressive liberalization of the legal profession in a manner that would not undermine or wholly prejudice the Nigerian legal practitioners”. Our interim memorandum, I am pleased to state, has been very well received by NOTN and has informed the actions that it has so far taken in regard to trade in legal services’ negotiations.

4. In fulfilment of the NBA’s commitment in our interim memorandum aforequoted, and the commitment specified in the Communique of our 2019 AGC arising from the Plenary on Cross-Border Trade in Legal Services, I have contacted the undermentioned eminent members of our Association and requested them and they have graciously accepted to serve on the Committee that would coordinate the NBA inputs both for the NOTN negotiations and the AfCFTA NAC activities.

The Committee members are:
i. Mfon Ekong Usoro (Chairperson)
ii. Nominee of the Honorable Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (Member and representing the General Council of the Bar)
iii. George Etomi (Bencher and Member)
iv. Seni Adio, SAN (Member and Chairman, Section on Business Law)
v. Theophilus Emuwa (Member and Partner, Aelex)
vi. Representative of the NBA National Secretariat to be nominated by the NBA President

5. We owe these members and in particular, the Honorable Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN (“HAGF”), a debt of gratitude. I informally discussed the setting up of this NBA AfCFTA Committee with the HAGF on Friday, 06 March 2020 and he readily gave us his support and full commitment therefor and promised to send us the name of his nominee as soon as he receives our formal letter thereon. The other members of the Committee have been carefully selected based on their experience and the value-addition they bring to the table. Mr. Etomi, for example, serves with Mfon on the International Bar Association (“IBA”) Bar Issues Commission International Trade in Legal Services which, as the name implies, is the IBA body that deals with issues relating to international trade in legal services on behalf of the Association. Seni, apart from being the Chairman of the Section on Business Law, is the Co-Chairman of the NOTN’s Nigerian Coalition of Services Industry for the Phase I AfCFTA Negotiations. In regard to Theo, it is common knowledge that Aelex has an office in Accra, Ghana and we are expecting him to have, from him and through him, the benefit of legal services exporting experience, in the context of the ongoing AfCFTA Negotiations.

6. The Committee’s terms of reference are well captured in the NOTN advertised invitation – attached hereto as “Annexure C” – and the AfCFTA NAC set-out functions that are contained in the FMITI letter, as paraphrased in paragraph 4 of this Release. Within those boundaries, the NBA AfCFTA Committee will define its work modalities and invite inputs from all our members which would guide the NBA’s representation both at the NOTN Negotiations and at the NAC AfCFTA Agreement implementation oversight assignment. Pending the publication of the Committee’s working modalities, members wishing to send their inputs to the Committee may address such inputs to the NBA President’s Office and hand-deliver or send same by courier to the NBA National Secretariat in Abuja. Electronic versions of such inputs should also be sent to Mirabel Mosugu-Gabriel at mirabel.mosugu@nigerianbar.org.ng and copied to Edidiong Peter at Peter.Edidiong@nigerianbar.org.ng. I look forward to robust contributions from our members on this critical AfCFTA assignments.

Paul Usoro, SAN NBA President

SHORT BIO OF MFON EKONG USORO (MRS)

Mfon Ekong Usoro holds an LL.M in Maritime Laws from University College London, an LLB (Hons) from the University of Buckingham, B.L (Hons) from the Nigerian Law School and a BSc (Hons) Sociology from the University of Calabar. She is on leave of absence as the Managing Partner of Paul Usoro & Co., a leading law firm in Nigeria. Usoro has extensive and current experience in trade in services, participation in negotiations at diplomatic meetings and achieving consensus for adoption of negotiated instruments amongst member States at the regional and continental levels.

Relevant Regional, Continental and International Experience
Usoro is the Secretary General of the Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control for West and Central African Region (Abuja MoU) – an Inter-Governmental Organization operating under a Cooperative Agreement with the International Maritime Organization with full diplomatic status. The Abuja MoU comprises of 22 member States abutting the Atlantic from Mauritania to South Africa. As the Secretary General, Usoro established teams of experts from member States for the development of constitutive documents, port State Control procedures, takes the lead in negotiation and secures adoption of those documents by the member States and has successfully attained a high level of harmonization of procedures, implementation and coordination among the member States. She has held the position for over 8years.

Mfon Usoro has at various times consulted for the African Union Commission. Working with a group of experts, she was pivotal to the drafting and negotiation of the African Union Maritime Transport Charter 2009. She is periodically invited by the African Union Commission Department of Infrastructure to participate in workshops/chair meetings held in Addis Ababa, Cairo etc. Usoro is a member of the African Network for Women in Infrastructure (ANWIn), an African Union Commission initiative.

Consulted for UNEP [Nairobi] and UICN [Senegal] to work with two other consultants from South Africa and Togo for the revitalization of the Convention for Co-operation in the Protection and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the West and Central Africa Region [Abidjan Convention].

Usoro was for several years, the sole Maritime legal consultant to the Maritime Organization for West and Central Africa (MOWCA), an inter-governmental body of countries in West and Central Africa headquartered in Cote d’ Ivoire. In that capacity produced the:

§ Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of a Regional Integrated Coastguard Network in the West and Central Africa Region 2008. As the Chairperson of the Ad-Hoc Committee on the Establishment of the Sub-Regional Integrated Coastguard Network negotiated and developed a consensus MOU among member States for presentation to and adoption by the Ministers of Transport of the sub-regional organization.

§ Draft Framework for Sub-regional Cabotage and the Memorandum of Understanding on Sub-regional Cabotage in October 2001. Usoro was appointed in 2009 to chair the ministerial committee of the Maritime Organisation of West and Central Africa (MOWCA) regional Maritime Development Bank in 2009.

For a period spanning over a decade, Usoro regularly attends meetings of the Implementation of IMO Instrument Sub-committee of the MSC Committee of the International Maritime Organization in London and has been privileged to chair twice the IMO Workshop for Secretary General and Database Managers of Regional Port State Control regimes.
She for more than a decade has been actively involved in discussions on liberalization of legal services including attending meetings at the WTO as a member of the International Bar Association Bar Issues Commission, International Trade in Legal Services.

Relevant National Experience

Mfon Usoro is a trade law expert and represents the Nigerian Bar Association at the Nigerian Coalition of Services Industry (NCSI). Mfon was recently appointed the Chairperson of the National Consultative Forum on Trade and Trade Related Negotiations, NOTN.

She was privileged to lead the brainstorming sessions at the services industry consultation on the Nigerian Draft Schedule of Specific Commitments organized by the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations in February 2020. She participated as a panelist in 2 panels at the recent National AfCFTA Forum on “Effective Implementation for Industrialization and Inclusive Economic Development in Nigeria” on 5-6 December 2019 co-organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

At the level of the NBA and apart from representing the NBA at NCSI, Usoro was the Alternate Chairperson, NBA Liberalization of Legal Services Working Group (2012-2014) and past Chairperson, NBA Section on Business Law.

Mfon Usoro is the pioneer Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, (NIMASA). Left the Agency in 2007. She is the chairperson of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for the Finalization of the National Transport Policy for Nigeria.

Corporate Boards

Usoro currently serves as Chairperson, Board of Directors of TIB Asset Management Limited; a Non-Executive Director (Independent), on the board of The Infrastructure Bank Plc; a Non-Executive Director (Independent), on the board of First City Monument Bank Ltd; a Non-Executive Director, on the board of Board of Geometric Power Limited.

National Honours

Mfon Usoro was conferred with the Officier de L’Ord de Mono, a national honour of the Republic of Togo in 2002; and Chevalier de l’Ordre du Merite Maritime, a National honour of the Republic of Cote D’ Ivoire in 2015.

Mfon Ekong Usoro