It was the gathering of the International Federation of Women Lawyers FIDA at Kaduna, which had come together for its Zonal Leadership Training with the theme “Leading with purpose, Building Ethical, Resilient and Influential Leaders for Sustainable Impact”. The well-attended two-day training at the Pyramid Hotel saw female lawyers from Abuja, Kano, Plateau, Kogi, Kaduna and Benue State.
Welcoming the participants to the state, the State’s Chief Judge, Hon. Justice Muhammed Tukur Mu’azu Aliyu, commended the female Lawyers for their efforts at defending innocent citizens, especially women and children.
Justice Mu’azu Aliyu assured FIDA that the Kaduna State judiciary will continue to support FIDA despite the constraints being experienced across the board. He emphasised that FIDA should also not forget its core values of transparency, accountability, teamwork, mutual respect and commitment to service through the legal framework, adding that the female lawyers should continue to lobby for the introduction and implementation of better laws and policies.
While the Commissioner for Internal Security, in Kaduna State, Dr Sule Shu’aibu SAN, commended FIDA for the leadership training, emphasising that the topic chosen for the training is apt and relevant in the profession today. “You cannot be a leader without acting purposefully”.
The training, he stressed, should cut across the male lawyers as the theme chosen is fundamental and very important in the day-to-day work of the lawyer.
He commended Barrister Funke Bamikole, chair of FIDA Kaduna, for her passion and commitment in uplifting the zonal branch.
The state’s former commissioner for Internal Security, Samuel Aruwan in a paper titled “The Architect and the Blueprint, ” noted that although their professions differ (he as a seasoned journalist) and a room filled with leaders of law, he believes both journalists and lawyers are in the same essential business. The business of building a society.
“As a Journalist, I work with the architecture of narration”, My task is to take the raw materials of truth and build a story the public would understand and trust, while in law, you are the master architects of justice itself, working with the most powerful blueprint of all, which is the rule of law”.
Although our narratives in Nigeria are complex, dominated by suspicion and prejudice, making our collective survivals a struggle, Aruwan believes our shared material is human trust”. Our shared Crisis in Media, in government or the public square is an erosion of that trust, when people no longer believe the story, the system or the law, the entire society becomes unstable.
Commending FIDA for the theme “Leading with purpose” he emphasised that it is the foundational load-bearing wall for rebuilding that trust, believing the purpose is built on three Conscious Choices. First, we must choose to be Architects not occupants. The purposeful path is to architect from within. “It is using your authority not just to apply the law, but to ask how the legal process itself can be more equitable”.
Secondly, he said we must build with the twin pillars of Ethics and Resilience. In Journalism, ethics are non-negotiable standards for the story and the policy; in law, it is the integrity of the entire structure “Ethical Leadership is not a placid virtue but an act of constant resilience”. And our blueprint must be for sustainable impact. Your sustainable impact is not the case you win today, it is the precedent you set, the junior you empower to challenge you, the culture of rigorous fairness you cultivate in your firm”. You build sustainably when you build for the successors you will never meet”.
In her welcome address at the two-day Zonal leadership training, the chairperson FIDA Kaduna, Barrister Funke Bamikole, while welcoming the participants, stressed that the association will continue to meet the objectives of FIDA by offering quality legal services to women, undertaking transformative public interest litigation, while increasing women’s awareness of their legal rights.
The theme “leading with purpose, is not accidental, the Chairperson said, but necessary for sustainable impact in the profession.
Asabe Ndoma
