You have over 20 years’ experience in Law Practice. How did your journey into the ecosystem start and who inspired you to become a Lawyer?
I must confess that I was cajoled into becoming one by my late dad who was a lawyer. It’s the dream of most, if not every lawyer to leave a legacy whereby the baton of the legal profession is passed on to their heirs. I was on a path to becoming a neurosurgeon, as the 4th of 6 children, but my dad convinced me otherwise, saying I would be a great lawyer.
He would refer to me as “the legal luminary!” My SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria) and eventually I succumbed and switched in my final year at high school from the sciences into arts. It was a big risk then and some of my teachers thought I was making a mistake. more so, I was doing well in the sciences. Eventually the school authority only approved it because I was a strong student.
It was a tough decision and my siblings (who were accounting and engineering students) tried to prevail on my dad to let me be, however, I am glad that God blessed that decision despite my initial hesitance and the last-minute switch.
Looking at your 20+ years journey, how fulfilling and challenging has it been for you as a woman practicing Law in Nigeria?
My experience as a woman in practice is peculiar, I had my first child immediately after graduating from the university and just before law school started. Law school was tough with a baby that was still being breast-fed. I remain thankful for a supportive family; during exams I would drop off my baby at my mum’s and move into the boarding facility while my husband would come regularly to say hello and also help with food.
Eventually I managed to finish with a 2:2- second class lower. After being called, as a result of family demands and also because my husband’s work took us out of the country, I couldn’t practice for about 7 years, but all along I never stopped learning one skill or the other just to ensure my brain remained engaged.
When we returned to the country and both of my kids started their primary education, I knew I could not sit at home doing nothing and thought it was probably too late to get into law practice since I had no experience and could barely remember anything I had learnt at school.
My husband helped secure a job at Dele Farotimi & Co, who took me in with no prior legal experience but based on an oral interview. I felt privileged and promised myself I would put in my best and not misuse the opportunity. After a brief meeting, Mr Farotimi graciously took me in. I felt like this was a huge favor which I must not take for granted. And I didn’t take it for granted, in my free time I was practicing how to draft legal letters and had a notebook filled with these practices in less than a month! I would listen intently to my boss and I learnt a lot very quickly from him. I would often joke that there was no day I didn’t hear a new word (or new usage) from Mr. Farotimi to enrich my vocabulary.
A few months later, he called me to his office and said; “I can’t believe you had no prior experience in legal drafting, you write so well and that is the quickest way for anyone to identify a good lawyer without having physically met: “your letters speak volumes in your absence.” He was the one who baptized me into real estate.
I was grateful that someone believed in me despite having been a stay-at-home mum and with no prior experience. There is a ripple effect to our actions. The ripple effect of Mr. Farotimi’s kindness is that we have gone ahead as a firm to extend the same opportunities to women in the same predicament that I was in when Mr. Farotimi took me in.
Quite a number of these women have gone ahead to also establish their own practice and are thriving. As much as possible, we don’t let our women miss memorable times with their children because of work and grant six months paid maternity leave when the occasion calls for it.
Your Law Firm has handled a lot of pro-bono cases for women in Nigeria. Can you tell us a bit about one of the cases that stood out for you?
As someone who is passionate about helping women to thrive, we extend our pro bono services to women whom the society would refer to as “less privileged or vulnerable”, including women in abusive situations and women wrongly incarcerated.
One that stood out for me was a woman with three children whom the husband, out of sheer act of irresponsibility, deserted and left her to bear the entire burden of caring for the needs of the children because the woman said she had had enough of the abuse.
He threatened not to bear any financial responsibility if the woman continued to kick against such maltreatment, he left her and started living a reckless life with another woman. We tried to mediate but he was unrepentant and said that: “this is Nigeria, a man can do anything and get away with it and there is nothing anyone can do.” He was recalcitrant, and the woman and children were in a pitiable state while he continued the reckless living.
Eventually, I assigned one of the lawyers in the office to the case and we took it up, lodging a report with the Office of Public Defender. It was then it dawned on him that apparently, women in abusive situations in Nigeria have hope. It was a huge success, a settlement was eventually reached, he not only paid the children’s school fees but he also began giving the woman a monthly allowance for upkeep and eventually, mediation resumed and the relationship became amicable again. We have had a huge success rate with our pro bono cases and for this, I remain immensely thankful.
You are one of the Powerful Voices in Africa’s Real Estate Investment; looking at the Investment Landscape of the continent, FDI has drastically dropped by almost 35%. What precisely is Heritage Dwellings doing to attract more diaspora investors into the continent?
We have taken on and implemented quite a number of initiatives to ensure we consistently pique the interest of Nigerians in the diaspora who make up about 75% of our clientele. Over the years we have thrived on word-of-mouth recommendation based on our deeply ingrained values of integrity, speed and excellence and have been able to provide succor to clients who had been burnt sending funds home to families for a project but who ended up diverting such. At one point, we knew we were selling integrity! Integrity is indeed an investment that would inevitably lead you to your goldmine.
Also, knowing their preferences and how the system works in those countries, we have been able to achieve a strategy whereby payment options can be tailored to suit the investment portfolio of our clients, this also gives them the opportunity to follow up on milestone achievements when payment is staggered over a period of time, thus instilling more confidence in our ability to deliver as promised.
We also do a lot of international promotion of our projects, so that potential investors can put a face to the project, this will inevitably boost their confidence in the project being promoted. Then, we tend to seek collaboration and forge alliances with property developers in the diaspora to foster the possibility of a partnership that will attract foreign investors.
A chapter of my soon to be published book on real estate has proffered quite a number of solutions to some of the problems besetting the growth of diaspora investments; there is an urgent need for regulatory reforms, for example the process of land acquisition requires a much better regulatory framework while the bureaucratic process of land registration is utterly discouraging and very slow.
Heritage Dwellings is one of the fastest growing woman-led Real Estate Development Firms in Africa, specializing in residential and commercial real estate projects. For those who want to invest, how can they do that?
Please visit our websites to see all the various options available:
www.heritagedwellings.com.ng and www.heritagerealtors.com.ng
You can also reach out to us via our Instagram accounts @heritgedwellings and @heritagerealtors. Our email address is info@heritagerealtors.com.ng or send a whatsapp message to any of the numbers listed below:
07064004483, 08139303012, 07064004481, 07064004489 and 07034009206.
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You have a Corporate Social Responsibility that is focused on renovating and equipping Public Schools in Nigeria with modern learning equipment. How does it feel knowing that beyond profit, you are making an impact in the lives of vulnerable children?
Moved by the dwindling reading culture among children, we created an online bookstore through the CSR arm of our company called the BARGAINBOOKS (on IG as @bargainbooksnaija) for the purpose of diverting profit to renovate public school libraries. There is a crucial obligation on us all to impact our community and be a light bearer, hence Bargain Books focuses on the full and thorough renovation of selected public-school libraries in the communities where our projects are located.
We have undertaken a mission to raise thought leaders by helping the young generation, especially the public-school pupils, to develop their reading habit and love for books. We collect partially used books which are still in great condition and donate to these schools. There is a dearth of reading amongst the typical Nigerian children, and we must never forget that readers are leaders. The work is endless, and we must sacrifice ourselves unstintingly for this cause; compared to their UK and USA counterparts, our children fall short in reading and learning.
Recently, we commissioned a fully renovated public school library at the Osoroko community of Ibeju Lekki called the St. David’s Anglican Primary School.
The renovations done include:
1. Replacement of the old and worn-out benches with more modern and comfortable chairs and tables;
2. Installation of window blinds;
3. Provision of bookshelves;
4. Supply of over 500 books to the library;
5. Repainting of the library;
6. Provision of a computer for the library;
7. Provision of four (4) additional teachers.
This would be the school’s first official computer! A school of over 350 students.
We are going ahead to help support with the provision of a solar panel to ensure that there is constant electricity supply for powering the computer, this would ensure our purpose of donating the computer is not defeated.
Every day, we must take actions compatible and consistent with our dreams and aspirations for our society, thus leaving trails of hope for our children and the generations after them.