By Stephen Onimisi Obajaja Esq
“There are many admirable qualities of Leadership. Brilliance and intelligence has its place. Means has its place. Integrity has its place. Times were when experience was pre-eminent. Times still have changed. Today empathy is the most important quality a Leader can have. Whatever other qualities a Leader has, if he does not have empathy, do not choose him”.
“Empathy is the quality all the Leaders of the Catholic Church had in abundance in modern times. Our generation almost always knew one Pope – Pope John Paul II – until the early part of the 21st Century. We thought at a point that Popes do not die. We have now since had Pope Benedict the XVI and Pope Francis I. What has defined their Papacy is empathy and compassion and that has ensured the spectacular success of their leadership of the Church”.
The mother Church – the Catholic Church – is a Church steeped in tradition. We call it the Universal Church and for purists – the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Christ present in her on the day of Pentecost and its mission to the whole World until the day Christ returns ensures its universality.
The Pontiff/Papa (Pope) which loosely translates to father sits atop the behemoth that is the Church. He is the visible/spiritual head of the Church worldwide and the political leader and sovereign of the Vatican. He is the Bishop of Rome. He is the “father of Kings”, “Governor of the World” and the Vicar of Christ”. His seat of power is St. Peter’s Basilica built atop the catacombs where the remains of many Saints and even Apostle Peter (the rock on whom our Lord Jesus Christ built his Church) and the first Bishop of Rome rests.
The Pope superintends over the Holy See (the Vatican) which is the political boundary of the spiritual Church and one of the oldest and smallest City States with all the apparatchik of sovereignty.
The history of this Church of which I am a communicant fascinates me. Its traditions and culture are transcendental.
The traditions of dogma and ritual are very impressive. But as impressive as they are, the Church even trumps this in its leadership traditions and how Popes succeed Popes. To aspire to be Pope, you must be a distinguished Prince of the Church. That is a Cardinal (the men with the resplendent ecclesiastical robes and red hats and at lent purple hats). Those servants of God are the true powers behind the Papacy. They keep and maintain the power, prestige and traditions of the Church.
When a Pope dies, a conclave is called and Cardinals (the College of Cardinals) who have served the Church and helped it enure with power and prestige converge at the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican to elect a new Pope from amongst their numbers. The Cardinals would have served the Church and the Pope for many years before they get a chance to take the Papal hat.
Leading the Church is about service and commitment and many years of preparation and weaning and getting ready for the day destiny beckons and ‘Papa cannot be found in his place’. The Apostolic successor of Saint Peter and the earthly head of the Catholic Church must be a man without blemish.
I have used this analogy of leadership recruitment in my Church compared to other models we see across the World because it is the best I see and know. Leadership recruitment in the great democracies of the World does not even come close. The lessons we love to learn from abroad and from those from whom we love to learn them are superficial compared to the pre-eminent place the election of a new Pope holds.
If you understand the process that leads the College of Cardinals to the Sistine Chapel and what happens at the Chapel you would marvel. Many popular and assumed Popes enter the Sistine Chapel and come out Cardinals still because all but one of them was still Cardinal!
It is this model in Rome with which the Nigerian Bar Association, Lagos Branch should identify. We should all have served with a humble and contrite spirit, human compassion and selflessly before we lead the Branch. That was so for many years and it is a tradition to which we ought and should return.
There are many admirable qualities of Leadership. Brilliance and intelligence has its place. Means has its place. Integrity has its place. Times were when experience was pre-eminent. Times still have changed. Today empathy is the most important quality a Leader can have. Whatever other qualities a Leader has, if he does not have empathy, do not choose him.
Empathy is the quality all the Leaders of the Catholic Church had in abundance in modern times. Our generation almost always knew one Pope – Pope John Paul II – until the early part of the 21st Century. We thought at a point that Popes do not die. We have now since had Pope Benedict the XVI and Pope Francis I. What has defined their Papacy is empathy and compassion and that has ensured the spectacular success of their leadership of the Church.
In contradistinction, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and George Bush Jr. between them were the most experienced men in Washington during that Presidency. See what hash they made of Iran and Afghanistan! The consequences of those wars (labeled a Crusade at some point) reverberates today as the World continues to reel from the actions and inactions of a quartet that had everything you need in a leader but critically lacked the one key thing that the world needs today – empathy.
Empathy is the critical element of leadership that is lacking in our World now. Our leaders in this part of the globe are unable to put themselves in the place and wear the shoes of those they lead. Often times, it is even glaring in aspiring Leaders long before they get the opportunity to lead – we elect them anyway and suffer the consequences all the same.
Our esteemed body of Lawyers (the various branches of the NBA) go to the polls this season and we ought at a National and Branch level – the basis on which the leadership of our association is organized – to take a critical look at those who will lead us and who and what they are. Adebola Olarotimi Lema (Lema) is the man who seeks to leadus at the Lagos Branch here and now.
There is no gainsaying that Lema understands his place in history and he does not seek to lead us lightly at this epochal time in history. Lema would be a Prince of the Church were the NBA, Lagos Branch the mother Church. He would not only be a prince of the Church, he would be a worthy prince who would wear the Papal hat. He should in the same vein lead us at the Lagos Branch at this time.
Lema will enter the Sistine Chapel and when the white smoke billows from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel it will not only be that “We have a Pope”. The words would follow: “Adebola Olarotimi Lema is our new Pope”.
This is the worthy and altruistic part the Branch is called upon to embrace. It is the right thing to do if we dispassionately consider what has been; what is now and what is to follow – what the future will be.
Lema has all the qualities you need in a Leader in spades but more critical is his emotional intelligence and the man of empathy that he is. He is the one who has put himself in our shoes. He is the one who has worn the toga we wear. He is the one who many have let down yet he accepts it and treat his traducers with Christian charity and even make excuses for them where some of us are outraged. He has been disappointed by many in the past yet he maintains a very cordial relationship with all who did that to him.
Even now, he still gets to hear how supposed friends and allies seek to undermine him, yet he never gets flustered or has a bad word to say against any one of them. Some people who should support him did not eventually do so the first time he ran for Chairman. He did not get bitter but instead supported those same persons to greater heights in the intervening years.
This is the man of empathy who seeks to lead us. Let it now be said on the 27th of June, 2023 when this process is concluded that we at the NBA Lagos Branch answered the call of history when it beckoned and elected Lema Chairman of the Branch when we had a second opportunity to do the right thing.
All Lema did in his life and at the NBA, he did with great empathy and compassion like the great Leaders of my church have always done. He did what he did with no expectations of reward and he many times did not even get a thank you from many his actions benefitted but still he will do what he says he will do because it is second nature. Take his manifesto and go to sleep assured that with Lema, what you see is what you get.
His antecedents prove it. He will work tirelessly to see to fruition his core reasons for seeking the leadership of our branch which he set out succinctly in his manifesto as: Welfare; Ease of Law Practice; Efficient Administration of Justice; Stewardship of the Committees of the Branch; Continuing Legal Education (CLE); Public Interest and Protection of Human Rights; A robust Bar and Bench Relationship; Strengthening the Young Lawyers Forum (YLF); Completion of the Bar Centre, Sports Development; Ethics and Discipline; Transparency and Accountability and above all “One Branch for the Good of All”.
As a former Secretary of the Lagos Branch of the NBA, Lema appreciates the need for continuous learning about today’s fast-paced industries and about our world and it’s ever changing dynamics. He has been involved in efforts to congregate fellow colleagues of our noble profession of law on insight seeking programs and events in the past, including as recently as 16th March, 2023 when he coordinated a well attended public lecture on the 45-year history of the Land Use Act.
The lecture which focused on thoughts for better and more efficient land administration in Lagos State in particular and in Nigeria in general was held in honour of Alhaji Femi Okunnu, SAN, CON to commemorate his 90th birthday with Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, CON, SAN, the immediate past Minister for Works and Housing and former Governor of Lagos State as Chairman of the occasion.
Before this and precisely on the 26th of January, 2018, he organized a well attended mediation seminar in conjunction with the Lagos State Multi-Door Court House (LMDC) with over One Hundred and Fifty (150) lawyers in attendance.
In the same year, he organized a public lecture to celebrate a nonagenarian and public spirited lawyer, Pa Tunji Gomez, at his 90th birthday anniversary. It was also well attended by many lawyers with a brilliant cast of speakers where everyone at the event was the better for it as the lecture explored activism at the bar and the great good public spirited lawyers can do in a society where injustice is rife.
In the year 2020 when the pandemic struck and Governments across borders were forced to declare lockdowns and businesses and social contact was shut down he again activated the Legal Touchbearers (a forum of Lawyers he formed) to engage over 450 Lawyers in lectures, trainings and seminars with leading lights in the legal profession as anchors which ensured that we continued to learn and maintain some semblance of normal in what has now become the new normal – engagement of the social media space for work and life.
He continues to make efforts to deepen both professional and social impact insights within the esteemed legal community with especial focus on members of the Lagos Branch he seeks to lead. He just collaborated with Greenhouse (GH) Capital Investment Limited to sponsor 200 members of the Branch to a highly impactful Venture Capital Training with NBA CLE points to boot.
He has consistently interacted and contributed to the activities and growth of various professional layers within and outside the NBA, to wit; FIDA, and AWLA. His records of contributions and genuine interests are known not to be merely seasonal or linked to election periods as his consistency to Bar causes over the years have become self evident.
He is also well known to support and participate in activities of diverse groups of lawyers whether within or outside of the NBA Lagos Branch. Such bodies include the Apapa Lawyers Forum, Surulere Lawyers Forum, Eti-Osa Lawyers Forum and so on. He maintains membership of the
Egbe Amofin Ni Eko as well as a long time interaction and relationship with the Otu Oka Iwu (Body of lawyers of Igbo extraction) amongst others to make worthy contributions, foster camaraderie and cultivate/nurture professional interaction across board.
Lema’s commitment to the good and growth of the profession in unparalleled and beyond compare and that informs his active participation at bar activities both at the branch and national levels. Lema firmly believes as President Theodore Roosevelt aptly puts it, “Everyman owes some of his time to the up building of the profession to which he belongs.” This is his creed and his charter, “to build this profession of ours” with abiding faith that it can be done.
Therefore let the pristine Sistine Chapel of the Lagos Branch conclude, let the white smoke billow forth from the chimney of the Lagos Branch to proclaim Adebola Olarotitmi Lema – a man of empathy – the Chairman of the NBA, Lagos Branch for the years 2023 – 2025.
Stephen Onimisi Obajaja Esq was Secretary of the Lagos Branch from 2015 to 2017. 08052066172.
“There are many admirable qualities of Leadership. Brilliance and intelligence has its place. Means has its place. Integrity has its place. Times were when experience was pre-eminent. Times still have changed. Today empathy is the most important quality a Leader can have. Whatever other qualities a Leader has, if he does not have empathy, do not choose him”.
“Empathy is the quality all the Leaders of the Catholic Church had in abundance in modern times. Our generation almost always knew one Pope – Pope John Paul II – until the early part of the 21st Century. We thought at a point that Popes do not die. We have now since had Pope
Benedict the XVI and Pope Francis I. What has defined their Papacy is empathy and compassion and that has ensured the spectacular success of their leadership of the Church”.
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