Nigerian lawyers and beyond celebrate historic swearing in of Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya as President of Africa's largest legal profession

Twenty-four years after attending her first Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Annual General Conference as a newly called lawyer and watching one president hand leadership of the NBA over to another, Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, stood onstage at Port Harcourt on Friday, and accepted the leadership baton herself. 

But for a woman making history, making history alone is not enough.

“I did not seek this office simply to make history, I sought it to make a difference,” Badejo-Okusanya told the Bar in her inaugural address, adding that her presidency “cannot be defined by gender alone”.

It is a distinction she emphasised throughout her journey to the presidency. As Africa Legal reported following her historic election win in July, Badejo-Okusanya had deliberately campaigned on capacity rather than gender, while expressing hope that Africa’s largest legal profession would eventually reach a point where gender no longer needed to be part of the leadership conversation.

For now, though, the significance of Friday was impossible to ignore.

“I receive this office with gratitude for those who ran before me, humility for the trust placed in me, and a solemn determination to run my own leg faithfully,” said Badejo-Okusanya. “May it be said, when this tenure is over, that the Bar became bolder; that lawyers felt seen, protected and empowered; and that we left the Nigerian Bar Association stronger than we met it. The work begins today.”

Badejo-Okusanya, a founding partner of ALP NG & Co, ran her election campaign on the slogan of ‘A Bolder Bar That Works for Everyone’, and was sworn in on Friday as the first woman elected as President of the NBA, and only the second to lead the association. Dame Priscilla Kuye became its first female president in 1991.

Thirty-five years later, Badejo-Okusanya formally assumed the presidency in Port Harcourt, the same city that played a pivotal role in that earlier chapter of NBA history. She hopes this latest milestone will be remembered not merely as a watershed but “as a catalyst for lasting change”.

“History is not made only when a barrier falls,” she told the thousands in attendance. “History is made when those who pass through the opening widen it for others.”

That change, however, will ultimately be measured beyond gender.

“After the journey, the consultations, the campaign, the mandate and the preparation, today marks the moment I formally step into the responsibility entrusted to me by the Bar,” Badejo-Okusanya said shortly before being sworn in.

At the heart of that responsibility is her “Members First. Always.” agenda and a determination to move Nigerian lawyers from merely surviving to thriving.

Economic dignity is central to that vision.

“A lawyer who is economically vulnerable is not truly professionally free,” Badejo-Okusanya said. “Economic dignity is not separate from professional dignity. It is essential to it.”

Her administration has pledged to pursue fair remuneration, reduce barriers and costs around legal practice, expand access to opportunities and technology, and equip lawyers for a profession being reshaped by AI and emerging areas of work.

ALP NG & Co hailed Friday as “a proud moment for our firm and the legal profession”, while Platinum & Taylor Hill LP said it looked forward to an administration that “strengthens the legal profession” and “advances the welfare of lawyers”.

The resonance extended beyond the profession. Businesswoman Mercy Olasiji called the inauguration “a truly historic milestone”, and “a significant moment for women in leadership and a powerful reminder of what is possible”.

For outdoing NBA President Afam Osigwe, Friday’s ceremony was also about passing responsibility for the institution onwards. “The Bar is now in your hands,” he told his successor. “Protect its independence. Lead with courage. Listen to its members. Defend the rule of law.”

Badejo-Okusanya now has two years to turn a historic first into something more enduring. Her own measure of success may be the simplest.

“May every step forward be guided by purpose, strengthened by courage, and measured by the lives of members of the bar made better along the way.”