The former Attorney-General of Lagos state, Professor Yemi Osinbajo
has been picked by the All Progressives Congress, APC, to run alongside
its presidential candidate, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, in next
year’s presidential election.
Osibajo was selected because he is a
pastor of the Redeemed Church, whose Christian congregants Buhari and
the APC are targeting in the 2015 presidential election.
Professor Osinbajo is a
Senior Advocate of Nigeria and Senior Partner in the Law firm of
SimmonsCooper Partners. He is a professor of law and was the head of
department of Public Law at the University of Lagos from 1997-1999.
He previously served as the Special Adviser to the Attorney General
of Nigeria (1988-1992), he later became the Attorney General and
Commissioner for Justice of Lagos State in 1999 reappointed for a second
term in 2003. During the period of his public service, he commenced the
Lagos State justice reform project. A prominent feature of that project
was the establishment of the Directorate for Citizens’ Rights (DCR)
which provides free legal services and legal representation to indigent
citizens of the state. This initiative gave a voice to many who would
otherwise not have a way to access their rights.
He is also the Ethics Adviser to the Advisory Board of the African
Development Bank and is a non-executive Director of Citibank. He has
served in various roles within the United Nations, United Nations Centre
on Transnational Corporations, the United Nations African Institute for
Crime Prevention, the International Criminal court for Rwanda in
Arusha, Tanzania, the department of Peacekeeping operations and the
United Nations Peace Operations in Somalia.
Prof. Osibajo is Co-founder & Board Member Convention on Business
Integrity and the Justice Research Institute Ltd. In 2007, Prof. and
his wife Oludolapo founded “The Orderly Society Trust”, a
non-governmental organization that is dedicated to the promotion of
Christian ethics and orderliness.
