Mohammed Shosanya
A legal practitioner with specialisation in oil and gas,Paul Obi,SAN has advocated the need for functional private and private refineries in order to alleviate the current suffering Nigerians are experiencing on account of fuel squeeze.
Obi,who is the Company Secretary of NIPCO Plc,commended the birth of Dangote Refinery,adding that conscious efforts should be made to resuscitate the Port Harcourt with a view to making impact in the nation’s petroleum value chain.
The coming of the Dangote refinery,he noted,is a big boost to the nation’s economy.
He said:“It is good that government is trying to do the right thing, they have embraced Dangote refinery, supplying crude to them in naira that frees the pressure in the foreign exchange in the country.If one or two of the refineries work, Dangote refinery works,then the pressure we are having in that sector will certainly reduce if not wiped off”.
He supported the current selection process in the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) rank by the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee.
Obi,who is also the Managing Partner P.C Obi & Co,said that although the SAN rank entails a rigorous process to acquire, there is no need to reform the same for now.
He told lawyers who intend to apply for the SAN position to ensure they meet the requirements before making their application to avoid rejection and multiple applications.
“I applied for the rank the first time and got it because I wanted to dot all the i’s, and cross all the Ts.I had read the guidelines and followed the rules, followed the procedure, followed the processes,I studied them well made sure all my cases are in order because I didn’t want to go this route severally.
“The procedure is rigorous.I had to go to Kano, Kaduna, Akwa Ibom State, Cross River State, Port-Harcourt, I did cases in all jurisdiction just to make sure that the 20 number of cases that were required at the high court,five at the Court of Appeal, four at the Supreme Court,were all done personally by me.
“It is not only me who applied for the first time and got it, there are other people who applied once and got it so.If you are technically qualified,the process is rigorous but it has a high degree of integrity. It could be fine tuned here and there but all in all, it is a very transparently credible process,”Obi said.
He commended the introduction of the new Supreme Court Rules’,noting that combined with the full complement of 21 justices of the apex court bench, justice delivery will no longer take as much time as it used to be.
