BODE OLAGOKE, in this piece writes on how Dr. Kayode Ajulo, plans the introduction of online legal services with over 50,000 online legal partners/associates as well as over 500, 000 law students/para-legals as interns to his professional service in Nigeria.
Young and brilliant Ondo State-born lawyer, Dr. Kayode Ajulo, who is a former National Secretary of the Labour Party, is a mix of class, candour, courage and comradeship, waiting to launch himself into a new innovation.
The décor in his Kayode Ajulo & Co. Castle of Law Chambers in Abuja is quite revealing and first-time visitors are likely to be struck by this obvious attention to details in design and finishing. Soft hymns wafts across the lobby from a metallic-black grand piano being played by a young well-dressed man in the corner.
That the legal practitioner is a man of class both in and out of the courtrooms is a fact that needs no debate.
Tall, young, dynamic, debonair and always with a smile, his calm but unassuming demeanor conceals the steely determination and burning passion with which he has pursued his goals.
He attributes his focus and other positive character traits to a strict Anglican Church upbringing and the orientation and tutelage received during his time as a student at Aquinas College, Akure, University of Jos, Middlesex University, Hendon, London and law offices of Attorney-General of Federation, Chief Afe Babalola and Dr. Tunji Abayomi.
“I passed through great institutions and I am privileged to have passed through some grandmasters in law practice. I served my country at the Federal Ministry of Justice, with the late Bola Ige, SAN as the Minister. The present Chief Judge of Ondo State, Hon. Justice Sehinde Kumuyi was my Head of Department, my direct boss.
Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, GOK Ajayi (SAN) and Dr. Tunji Abayomi need no introduction”, he said,
Continuing, “They taught me three indelible lessons and my mind is constantly impregnated with three things: never to consider anything impossible, and to be daring in our imaginations, and to strive for integrity, compassion and excellence in our exploits.”
The trajectory of his life thus far has embodied these three qualities. Always politically inclined, he had served in several leadership capacities dating back to when he was 17 years old as an executive of union body.
As an undergraduate, he served among others as Secretary of SUG Social Committee, Treasurer of the Student Union back in UNIJOS and member, caretaker committee. His co-executives member and comrades in campus politics, Hon. TJ Yusuf and Philip Shuaibu, who were National Secretary of the National Association of Nigerian Students and National President of NANS respectively. They are now lawmakers in the National Assembly. Philip is also the Deputy Governor-Elect of Edo State. Ajulo himself was once a candidate of Labour Party for FCT Senate seat in 2011.
Today, as the former National Secretary of the Labour Party (LP), Ajulo is probably the youngest Nigerian to have ever held such a position of leadership in a leading political party in modern Nigerian political history.
In legal practice, Ajulo parades an array of ‘heavyweight’ clients who include several federal and state government agencies in Nigeria and international organisations; his acquaintanceship with the high and mighty in the land is a testimony that he is savvy in the courtroom.
He ascribes his ability to mingle effectively with his elders to the popular Yoruba saying about how properly washed hands could facilitate a young man’s dining with the elderly. He has close relationships with the top echelon of Nigeria’s political firmament and has functioned in advisory capacity to past presidents and several governors.
As an advocate for social justice, good governance and social opportunities, his legal advocacy practice spread beyond the nation’s shores to countries such as the United Kingdom, Ghana, Guinea, providing consulting services for the governments of about twelve countries across Africa and Europe.
He holds membership of several organisations, including Avant Garde international, International Association of Human rights Lawyers, Nigerian Red Cross, the Nigerian Institute of Management, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), International bar association (IBA) and Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, UK.
A deeply sensitive and upright individual, Ajulo attributes his famed ‘aluta spirit’, burning compassion and philanthropic disposition to growing up under the tutelage of two parents, a bookseller father and a seamstress turned entrepreneur mother, who taught him to bear the burden of his neighbour while also stressing that the term “neighbour” encompasses everyone he encountered in need of help.
His personality finally found full expression when he established the Egalitarian Mission For Africa, a non-profit making organisation established for the promotion of the rule of law, social and economic equality in Africa and it has been a voice in the local and international media campaigning for global good governance and democracy as well as being one of the leading voices against corruption, nepotism and injustice across Africa.
As Founder/Chairman, his activities have straddled the global landscape as he continues to champion the rights of the oppressed while cross-fertilising ideas with governments and personalities. Today, the NGO act in advisory capacity to many states in Nigeria and sixteen African countries at no cost.
For Ajulo, the next best influence after parental guidance has been the educational environment in which he was raised. First, a student of Aquinas College, he proceeded to study Law at the University of Jos from, where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Law in 1999. He obtained his Master of Laws Degree (LL. M), bagged a honourary Doctor of Law, LL.D and is currently pursuing his PhD in Social Justice and Corporate Social Responsibility in the United Kingdom. He is also an Adjunct lecturer in some local and foreign universities like Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State.
In 2013, he was appointed by the government of Ondo State as the Chairman of the Board of Ondo State Radio-Vision Corporation.
He also sits atop of several corporate and commercial entities that have hands in aviation, oil & gas, communication, Agriculture and real estates as Director.
He displays his political icons in framed paintings of Mohandas Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Barrack Obama, General Benjamin Adekunle (Black Scorpion), Justice Kayode Esho and his mother, Princess Christiana Monisola Ajulo. Up and above them all sits an artist’s impression of Jesus Christ. His moral and political influences, he calls them.
“I like to judge my moral conducts and professional choices by asking what would these persons do in any scenario I find myself. The answers I have gotten have never failed me till date,” he says.
Ajulo remains a shining light among his people, prides himself as locally bred and he gushes with honest appreciation of his time amongst intellectuals in the world.
“I travel a lot around the world and each time, after presenting my papers during seminars, workshops and conferences, I take delight in tell them that I am very proud to be a product of the Nigerian educational system”.
On the issue of his political future, Ajulo simply said: “Let’s wait and see, time and my people will tell which direction to go”.
Novel and unique in the expansion of his legal service is the fact that, Barrister Kayode Ajulo is injecting well over 50,000 online legal partners/associates as well as over 500, 000 law students/para-legals as interns to his professional service, this promises to be the largest Legal Resources Hub in Sub-Saharan Africa with the capacity to attend to clients anywhere they are in the world, only with the aid of phones, computers and internet facility.
In specific terms Ajulo maintained that with the online legal service, clients are seamlessly open to high quality lawyers through what he called easy to use marketplace. In his view everyone should have easy access to robust legal assistance which can meet their individual needs with the care and diligence they deserve.
He maintained further that everyone needs a lawyer in his or her daily endeavors whether for legal consultancy, litigation/arbitration, strategic consultancy, corporate and commercial document review, or document preparation as the case may.
In his words; “It is a matter of thinking big, it is a matter of selfless quest to be a pathfinder of great innovation. It is not about me perse but our world which makes leaving a lasting and enduring legacy a priority.
As a lawyer of over 15 years in practice, my recent preoccupation centres around what to positively contribute to the legal profession which has given me so much. We cant stop dreaming, and this genuine passion has essentially informed what I’m doing which is dreaming big and thinking out of the box.”
