Dr. Wale Babalakin (SAN), is a businessman and a lawyer by profession. He is also deeply involved in the Construction industry. He is the son of a highly respected and distinguished jurist, Justice Bola Babalakin, a former Justice of the Supreme Court.
Babalakin is also the founder of one of the most prestigious law firm called Wale Babalakin and Co., where he still remains the Principal Partner. He might be a Lawyer, by training, but he is well known for his exploits as the guy behind some of the most popular construction firms in the country; Bi-Courtney Limited, Stabilini Visinoni Limited and Resort International Limited.
Wale Babalakin has an impressive list of business interests and achievements. After making major successes in the development of real estate, including the proprietorship of a few high rise buildings in Abuja and Lagos, he, through his Company, Bi-Courtney Limited, applied for the concessioning of the Lagos Domestic Airport, the Murtala Mohammed Airport 2, after the airport was razed by fire. Nobody gave the project a chance as it was considered too cumbersome for the capacity of a private company.
In a country with an acknowledged huge infrastructure deficit, the company is a frontline player in Infrastructure Development and Maintenance, with a record of delivering the first major Private-Public Partnership (PPP)-financed infrastructure in the Aviation Industry.
Within three years of the concessioning, however, and in the face of serious hostility and inconsistency on the part of the government, Bi-Courtney Limited completed the new domestic airport now famously known as MMA2, which has been variously described as the best airport in Nigeria today and definitely the first airport terminal to be built in Africa with private funds without any support from the government.
The Airport constructed under a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement with the Federal Government. It is acclaimed the most modern, functional and well-run domestic airport terminal in the sub-Sahara Africa.
Bi-Courtney was also the first company to win a concession agreement for the reconstruction and modernisation of Nigeria’s busiest and most important highway, the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, under a Design, Build, Operate and Transfer (DBOT) agreement.
Bi-Courtney with its numerous subsidiaries, which include, Stabilini Visinoni Limited, Homan Engineering Limited, Bi-Courtney Highway Services Limited, Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited, Resort International Limited, Amalgamated Estates Limited and many others is run by Dr. Babalakin
He is as the Chairman of Resort International Limited, a hospitality and leisure company that is currently engaged in converting the former Federal Secretariat, Ikoyi in Lagos to luxury blocks of flats, and also the development of a 300- bed hotel at MMA2. Significantly, Dr. Babalakin’s Bi-Courtney Highways Limited had also won the bid for the reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway until the Federal Government revoked the pact it in November 2012.
BIRTH AND EARLY EDUCATION
Wale Babalakin was born on 1st July, 1960 in the ancient Nigerian city of Ibadan in Oyo State. His father, the Honourable Mr. Justice Bolarinwa Oyegoke Babalakin is a retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, and his mother, Mrs. Ramotu Ibironke Babalakin, was a pioneer female hospital proprietress in Ibadan. He attended Sacred Heart Private School. He later proceeded to the prestigious Government College, Ibadan (GCI) for his secondary education and was the Banjo prize winner in Grier House in 1971.
For his ‘A’ Levels, Babalakin attended the Polytechnic, Ibadan and was subsequently admitted into the University of Lagos in 1978, where he graduated as one of the best three students in the Faculty of Law in 1981. He proceeded to the Nigerian Law School where he was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1982.
That same year, Wale Babalakin was one of the only three Africans students admitted into Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University for the pioneer Masters of Laws Degree. Although his academic programme was sponsored by his father, but in 1984, he could not resist the allure and prestige of a Commonwealth Scholarship, which in that year was only made available to three Nigerian students studying abroad and who were awarded the scholarship for their outstanding academic performance. Wale Babalakin was awarded the LLM Degree in 1983 and preceded immediately for his doctoral programme. Dr. Babalakin received his PhD in 1986 on the eve of his 26th birthday.
HOW HE STARTED WALE BABALAKIN AND CO.
Returning to Nigeria in 1986, Dr. Babalakin joined the firm of his esteemed mentor and father figure in the profession, the late Chief Frederick Rotimi Williams, where he worked for exactly a year. In July 1988, he established his own firm, Babalakin and Co. The firm Babalakin and Co blossomed and today is one of the leading law firms in Nigeria with more than 60 lawyers in its Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt offices. The firm has been engaged in a very substantial number of litigations with some of them quite controversial, but being a fervent believer in the concept of “justice according to Law” and not according to the whims and caprices of the administrators of the law, Dr. Babalakin has found himself on many occasions taking positions, which appear contrary to established views and sometimes quite confrontational to the authorities. Apart from making considerable mark as a practitioner, Dr. Babalakin’s intellectual zeal has led him to the sphere of publishing of Law Reports. In 2009, the owners of Nigeria’s first privately published Law Report, Optimum Law Publishers, which was commenced in 1964 assigned their rights and interest in the Law Report to Babalakin and Co.
PHILANTHROPIC ACTIVITIES
Dr. Wale Babalakin is very committed to many philanthropic activities. When the office of the Public Defender in Lagos was gutted by fire, Dr. Babalakin, who knew the significant role the institution is playing in defending the rights of the masses opted to rebuild and furnish it.
He has, over the years, executed the following: Donated an 80-bed hostel to the University of Ilorin in the name of his father, the Hon. Mr. Justice Bolarinwa Oyegoke Babalakin, Donated an 80-bed hostel at Ibogun, Ogun State in memory of his mother, Mrs. Ramotu Ibironke Babalakin, Donated a 500-seater auditorium to the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic in memory of his late mother, Treated 1000 patients with various eye diseases in Aye Daade Local Government, Treated 4000 patients with various eye diseases in Owo Local Government under the foundation set up in memory of his late mother and He has an elaborate scholarship in and out of Nigeria with more than 200 students in Nigeria and about 40 beneficiaries abroad.
PERSONAL LIFE
Dr. Babalakin is married to Olugbolahan Babalakin, the daughter of the Honourable Mr. Justice and Mrs. Y.A.O. Jinadu, who is also a Lawyer by profession. They are blessed with children.
-IFENNA E.
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