By David Torough, Abuja

Nigeria’s healthcare sector received a major boost on Friday as Dangote Cement Plc commissioned a multimillion naira hospital in Obajana, Kogi State.

The commissioning ceremony also featured the conferment of traditional chieftaincy titles on the Group Managing Director of Dangote Cement Plc, Arvind Pathak, the Plant Director of the Obajana Plant, Azad Nawabuddin, Head of Social Performance, Wakeel Olayiwola, General Manager Social Performance, Obajana, Ademola Adeyemi, Head Human Resource and Admin and Dangote Packaging Limited, Bashir Uba.

Pathak was conferred with the prestigious title of Mayegun of Obajana Kingdom, while Nawabuddin and Olayiwola received the traditional titles of Babagunwa and Adeyanju, respectively.

The new hospital is part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme designed to improve access to quality healthcare for residents of Obajana and neighbouring communities.

The Bajana of Obajana, Idowi Isenibi, described the project completion as a dream come true, adding that his community will protect the facility and the equipment, and ensure that it serves the purpose.

Speaking at the ceremony, the Acting Plant Director of Dangote Cement Plc, Obajana Plant, Panjala Sreedhar, said the project was conceived after extensive consultations and community needs assessments that identified healthcare as a major priority.

He explained that the Cottage Hospital was built to provide comprehensive primary and secondary healthcare services, reducing the burden on residents who previously travelled long distances to access medical treatment.

According to him, the facility is equipped with male, female and children’s wards, private wards, consulting rooms, a meeting room, 19 sanitary facilities, digital blood pressure monitoring devices, a dedicated borehole water supply and other essential medical infrastructure.

He expressed confidence that the hospital would improve maternal and child healthcare, strengthen healthcare delivery and enhance the overall wellbeing of residents in Obajana and surrounding communities.

Sreedhar noted that Dangote Cement has consistently invested in education, healthcare, infrastructure, youth empowerment and livelihood programmes across Obajana, Oyo, Iwaa, Apata and Jakura communities through continuous engagement with stakeholders.

He announced that the company has also approved additional projects, including ICT centres for Oyo and Iwaa communities, electrification projects in Jakura, vocational and skills acquisition programmes for youths, perimeter fencing of the Obajana Cultural Heritage Site and fencing of the UBE Secondary School in Apata.

The Acting Plant Director reaffirmed the company’s commitment to sustaining strong partnerships with its host communities and creating shared value through impactful development projects.

He also appreciated Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo for providing an enabling environment for businesses to thrive, saying the administration’s support has contributed significantly to the growth of Dangote Cement’s operations in Kogi State.

Speaking on behalf of Governor Ododo, the Special Assistant on Corporate Social Responsibility, Hon. Paul Sunday, commended Dangote Cement for its sustained investments in community development and urged the company to provide medical personnel to operate the facility pending the deployment of health workers by the local government.

Chairman of Lokoja Local Government Council, Hon. Abdullahi Adamu, described the hospital as a major intervention that would improve healthcare access for residents, urging members of the community to make effective use of the facility.

Adamu also appealed to Dangote Cement to sustain its support for local security outfits, particularly vigilante groups operating within the Obajana community, to further strengthen peace and security.

The Obaro of Kabba and Chairman of the Okun Traditional Council, His Royal Majesty Oba Solomon Owoniyi, praised the company for delivering the healthcare project, noting that although a general hospital would have been preferable, the Cottage Hospital remained a significant contribution to community development.

The royal father urged the people of Oworo land to take ownership of the facility by ensuring its proper maintenance while pledging the support and cooperation of the host community.

Group Head, Socio-Performance, Dangote Cement Plc, Wakeel Olayiwola, said the cordial relationship between the company and its host communities made the project possible, adding that the company had taken note of the observations and requests made by stakeholders.

Olayiwola disclosed that since 2025, Dangote Cement has expanded its Corporate Social Responsibility programmes beyond its immediate host communities, assuring residents that the company would continue to undertake projects that improve lives and support sustainable community development.

General Manager Social Performance, Obajana Plant, Ademola Adeyemi, said the company has several other programmes lined up for execution as CSR and those contained in the Community Development Agreement (CDA).

He appreciated the traditional leaders for the titles conferred on management staff, saying it will spur the company to do more, as it enjoys peaceful relations.

The Police in Delta has arrested four suspects over alleged armed robbery and cultism in separate operations across the state.

This is contained in a statement by the Command’s Public Relations Officer, Bright Edafe, on Tuesday in Asaba.

Edafe said that on July 14, a joint team of Police operatives and members of the Civilian Anti-Cult group mobilised and trailed a suspected armed robbery gang on the Asaba Benin Expressway.

He said that the suspects, Stephen Danladi, 29 and Jude Christian, 26, were subsequently arrested.

“A search of the suspects led to the recovery of two locally made pistols.

“Preliminary interrogation yielded further intelligence, which led operatives to Issele-Asagba and Ogwashi-Uku, where one Jerry Egenus of Atuma-Iga, Oshimili North Local Government Area was arrested for alleged gun running and receiving stolen property,” Edafe said.

He said that investigations revealed that the suspects were allegedly linked to a series of armed robbery incidents in Okpanam, Asaba and adjoining areas.

“The suspects and recovered exhibits are in custody and investigation is ongoing,” the command’s spokesman said

Edafe also said that in a sustained fight against cultism, operatives of Ogwashi-Uku Police Division responded to a distress call at the Polytechnic area, where a suspected cult member, 24, was arrested.

The statement said the “non-student suspected to be a member of the Eiye confraternity was arrested on July 10.

“Recovered from the suspect were one locally made pistol, three live cartridges, one expended cartridge and one dagger knife.

“The suspect and the recovered exhibits are in police custody, while investigation is ongoing,” he said.

The spokesperson quoted the Commissioner of Police (CP) Yemi Oyeniyi as reiterating the command’s commitment to sustaining intelligence-led and proactive policing aimed at dismantling criminal networks, combating cultism and proliferation of illegal firearms in the state.

Oyeniyi urged residents of the state to continue supporting the Police with timely, credible and actionable information.

The CP assured that the command would do all in its efforts to safeguard lives and property throughout the state. 

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Three score and three years ago, a defining dispute erupted in the old Western Region of Nigeria over the scope and reach of constitutional conventions in determining or terminating the tenure of high-level political leadership.

This year, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) confronts its own moment of truth concerning how far conventions initially designed to accommodate national diversity in its leadership processes, can be converted into ethno-tribal vetoes by entities that in fact are not part of its institutional or constitutional organs.

For context, the NBA elects a new set of leaders every even number year. It has for long been the assumption that “the NBA is too important to be left alone.” Elections into its leadership organs unfold as a political market-place for a complex competition of interests, many of them external to the legal profession. This year, the biggest issue is arguably the role of ethno-tribal caucuses at the Nigerian Bar.

The road to this point was paved by a combination of ordinarily unrelated events. On 14 August 1991, Taslim Elias died. He was Nigeria’s attorney-general at independence, at a time when the position was deservedly prefixed with the honorific “honourable” (hence HAGF), later becoming Chief Justice of Nigeria. At his death, he was a judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). To replace Elias for the remainder of his ICJ tenure, Nigeria nominated Bola Ajibola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who was then serving as HAGF.

That step opened up a vacancy for the designation of a new HAGF. To fill that vacancy, military ruler, Ibrahim Babangida, nominated Clement Akpamgbo (SAN). At the time, Akpamgbo was in the middle of his tenure as the 15th president of the NBA. To succeed Akpamgbo as president and in keeping with its constitution, the NBA’s first Vice-President, Priscilla Kuye, took over as president. She was the first woman in that position.

The next cycle of elections into the leadership of the association were scheduled to occur the following year in 1992. In August of that year, members duly convened in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, for the elections, but the conference broke up in extraordinary fracas. Five years later, as the embers of military rule began to fade, the association was resuscitated.

In the aftermath of that crisis and at the turn of the Millennium, the NBA introduced two reforms into its leadership process, one explicit and the other initially by convention. First, it abolished universal suffrage among its members, replacing it with a delegate system of leadership selection. In 2015, however, universal suffrage returned. Second, it introduced a convention of rotating the most important leadership positions in the association among the founding three regions of the country – Eastern, Northern, and Western regions.

After 15 years, the NBA wrote this convention into its constitution by way of an amendment, which mandated that “the Association shall for the purpose of elections of National Officers be divided into three geographical zones namely – Northern zone, Eastern zone and Western zone.” The positions of

The President, three Vice-Presidents, and General-Secretary rotate among the three zones. In particular, the NBA constitution prescribes that eligibility to run for any of the rotated offices shall be determined with reference to natal origins, not establishment.

Far from stopping here, the NBA constitution goes further to prescribe that “where a position is zoned to any particular geographical zone, the position shall be rotated and held in turn by the different groups and/or sections in the geographical zone.” Remarkably, it does not say who can have a say in deploying these arrangements concerning zoning and micro-zoning.

The result has been a bazaar in nativist interest groups of lawyers in Nigeria, such as the Arewa Lawyers Forum (ALF); Eastern Bar Forum (EBF); Egbe Amofin Oodua (Egbe); Middle-Belt Lawyers Forum (MBLF); and Mid-West Bar Forum MWLF). They are not organs of the NBA in any form. Operating as ethno-tribal caucuses, these interest groups have sought to mediate the jostling for positions in the NBA. Until now, their roles have been informal, operating at best at the level of unwritten conventions.

In 2018, when the presidency of the NBA rotated to the east, the EBF endorsed Arthur Obi-Okafor (SAN) as its preferred candidate. In the election, however, Paul Usoro, who also comes from the same region, was declared winner.

In 2026, the presidency of the NBA rotates to the west. The Egbe (an association of lawyers of Yoruba descent) and the MWBF are both active in this region. In the current election cycle, the MWBF decided not to run any candidate for the presidency, ceding it to lawyers native to the six states of south-west Nigeria.

The Egbe asserts primacy in the role of mediating the ambitions of those from that region desiring to run for the presidency of the association. This year, it put forward Muyiwa Akinboro (SAN) as its candidate. However, Yemi Akangbe (SAN) and Oyinkan Badejo-Okusanya (SAN), who are both from the same region, have declined to step down their ambitions. Egbe argues that it micro-zoned the position to the part of south-west from which Mr Akinboro comes and asked the NBA to elbow the other candidates out of the contest so that he can emerge effectively unopposed.

In reality, this micro-zoning that the Egbe speaks of had been in existence since 2019. But in the 2020 contest for a president of the NBA from the western region, both Dele Adesina (SAN) and Tunde Ajibade (SAN), who contested the position come from outside that micro-zone. In 2008, Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) emerged unopposed as the 24th president of the NBA by persuading other aspirants informally to stand down for him. The ethno-tribal trump asserted by the Egbe this year would be unprecedented.

In the face of predictable resistance, the association sued at the High Court in Ibadan, seeking to get its way. The court issued rapid fire interim injunctions against the election process of the NBA. The NBA appealed. On 11 June, the Attorney-General of the Federation, who is a named defendant in the suits in Ibadan, claiming ostensible permission from the Court of Appeal, called a meeting of the disputing parties with all living former presidents of the NBA.

The meeting constituted a three-person subcommittee headed by Wole Olanipekun (SAN), the 20th president of the NBA. It included Lanke Odogiyan and Paul Usoro (SAN), respectively the 22nd and 29th presidents of the association, but there is a dispute as to what it asked the sub-committee to do.

An unsigned majority report by Olanipekun and Odogiyan claims that it was constituted to inquire into “the causes of the present conflicts within the NBA” and to make recommendations on the way forward to the HAGF. A separate report by Paul Usoro disputes this and says the sub-committee was confined to helping the HAGF to fulfill his commitment to the Court of Appeal, to broker an amicable settlement among the parties.

The Olanipekun-Odogiyan report makes far-reaching recommendations. Among them, it asks for the postponement of the elections (to August) and mandates the incorporation of the National Identification Number (NIN) as a voter identifier, claiming – rather incredulously – that the enrollment number, a unique identifier assigned by the Supreme Court to each lawyer in Nigeria “is not a security number.” In particular, they want an end to universal suffrage in the NBA and insist that “The micro-zoning done by the Egbe in line with the NBA Constitution should be allowed to stand.” Paul Usoro largely disagreed.

The main recommendations of the report are mutually irreconcilable.

If the Olanipekun-Odogiyan report had investigated the matter, it would have learnt that the bureaucratic and data integrations that should precede NIN integration into the unique identification system for all lawyers in Nigeria can only be implemented by the Supreme Court in collaboration with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). This cannot be accomplished before August “or soon thereafter.” By prescribing impossible conditions, that report effectively sought to create conditions for the tenure of the current leadership to lapse, which would enable the government to end the idea of an independent bar, just as the military did in 1992.

Rather than take his proposals to the parties or to the Court of Appeal, from which he claimed his mandate, the HAGF mostly amplified the Olanipekun-Odogiyan report, endorsing nearly all of its recommendations in an error-strewn document ostentatiously headed as “Directions and Outcomes.” But even he could not bring himself to accept Egbe’s insistence on imposing its ethno-tribal preference on the NBA in the current cycle.

On 8 July, the Court of Appeal declined his thinly disguised effort to end-run the cases before the court. Judgment by the court is awaited.

Pending that, the NBA’s leadership election is likely to proceed as scheduled on 18 July under court protection. Two offices will be returned unopposed, while eight will be contested. When the association last voted in 2024, there were 72,071 eligible voters. On 18 July, there were 82,213 eligible voters, (an increase of 14.07 per cent). It is the largest in the history of the association.

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a lawyer, teaches at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and can be reached through chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu.