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The Attorney-General of Akwa Ibom State and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Uko Udom, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) has said that he will be at the 2021 annual conference of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria (ICSAN), Akwa Ibom State chapter holding on the 24th of September 2021.
Mr. Udom made this known recently during a courtesy visit to him at his Uyo office by the executives of ICSAN Akwa Ibom state chapter led by the Chairman, Barr. Ime Asibong. The Barr. Asibong led executive, in their address, sought the partnership of the Ministry of Justice through sponsorship of Ministry staff for the 2021 conference as well as partnership in the area of training, manpower development and capacity building by enrolling ministry staff for ICSAN’s professional training and qualifying examination.
In his remark, the Attorney-General, Mr. Uko Udom, SAN hailed the ideals of ICSAN towards entrenching corporate governance in organizations and disclosed that he qualified as a member of ICSAN as far back as 1984. He said ICSAN is an organization deeply rooted in the Nigerian organizational system and expressed his delight that ICSAN is being rejuvenated in Akwa Ibom state. “ICSAN is something that we need to encourage the young lawyers here at the Ministry to get involved in because, at the corporate space, it is important to know the rules of corporate governance in order to function optimally,” he said.
Mr. Udom, who noted that the Ministry of Justice is a fertile ground to breed strong ICSAN membership in the state, assured the ICSAN delegation that the Ministry of Justice would sponsor some staff to attend the 2021 conference and subsequently enroll some staff to take ICSAN’s qualifying examination.
He added that the partnership between the Ministry of Justice and ICSAN Akwa Ibom State chapter is of great advantage to the Ministry because “it provides an opportunity to groom rounded practitioners who can operate very well in the corporate space”.
The Chief Law officer of Akwa Ibom State, however, decried the amendment of certain sections of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), which according to him has largely taken out professionalism from the practice of company secretaryship.
He said, “It’s unfortunate that we missed it when we allowed certain changes to be made in some sections of CAMA that now opened up the space for all kinds of people to be practitioners in the area of company secretaryship. In those days, it was only lawyers and members of ICSAN that could be Company Secretaries in an organization but today with the new amendment in CAMA you don’t even need to have a Company Secretary especially in smaller organizations”.
