The Nigerian Law Society (NLS) has held its 3rd Annual General Conference in Abuja, with the theme: “Nigeria’s Democracy: The Journey So Far”.
The event brought together legal scholars, policymakers, and industry experts to assess the state of Nigeria’s democracy and explore strategies for strengthening democratic governance and institutions.
In his keynote address, Professor Maxwell Gidado (SAN), former Attorney General of Adamawa State, paid tribute to Nigeria’s democratic forebears while critically examining the nation’s democratic journey.
He defined democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” underscoring that it must reflect popular participation, representation, and a commitment to the people’s welfare.
Gidado outlined key features of Nigerian democracy, including open government, the protection of human rights, periodic elections, separation of powers, freedom of the press, the rule of law, and the autonomy of local governments—as recently reaffirmed by the Supreme Court’s July 11, 2024, judgment on local government independence.
While Nigeria is theoretically a federation with power shared between the federal and state governments, Gidado argued that, in practice, the 1999 Constitution (as amended) has endowed the federal government with excessive powers.
This centralisation undermines the principles of true federalism, he said, and fuels ongoing calls for restructuring. He called for fiscal decentralisation and enhanced state-level authority in areas such as resource control and internal security.
Speaking at a plenary session on resource governance in Nigeria’s mining sector, Amanda-Lumun Feese, a mining and extractive industry expert and facilitator at the Industrial Policy Commission of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), decried the sector’s current underperformance. Despite Nigeria’s abundant mineral wealth and rising global demand, the mining sector contributes less than 1% to the nation’s GDP—far below its historical 4% contribution.
Feese attributed this decline to several interlinked challenges, including conflicts over jurisdiction between federal and state authorities, the absence of an independent regulatory body for mining, poorly aligned exploration strategies that discourage investment, lack of a domestic mining finance system, and weak integration between mining and other sectors of the economy.
She stressed the need for cooperative federalism to resolve these structural challenges.
According to her, constitutional and regulatory reforms are crucial to unlocking the sector’s potential, attracting global investment, and stimulating inclusive economic growth and job creation.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the conference, NLS President, Chief Mela Audu Nunghe, echoed these sentiments, stating that the current legal and governance framework for the mining sector is fragmented and ineffective.
He added that empowering local communities and families as landowners, while allowing the government to retain regulatory oversight, would promote transparency, accountability, and equitable development.
The conference concluded with an awards ceremony honouring distinguished legal professionals for their contributions to the growth of the NLS and Nigeria’s legal system.
The honourees included: Chief Asiwaju A.S. Awolomolo (SAN), Dr Tony Ojukwu (SAN), Chief Kunle Ogunba (SAN), K.T. Turaki (SAN), Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), Mohammed A. Abubakar (SAN), Chief Bolaji Ayorinde (SAN), and Chief Joe-Kyari Gadzam (SAN).
