Olawale
Fapohunda, Attorney – General & Commissioner for Justice,
Ekiti State. before his appointment was Managing Partner, Legal Resources
Consortium, a Public Interest Law firm based in Lagos, Nigeria. Fapohunda is a
human rights lawyer and one of Nigeria’s leading experts in justice sector
reform.
He
is the Vice – Chairman, Federal Government Panel on the Implementation of
Justice Sector Reforms, he is also a serving two-time Commissioner with the
National Human Rights Commission.
He
is currently Vice- Chairman, National Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
He has the distinct credential of serving on the Justice Sector Reform team of
every Attorney- General and Minister of Justice in Nigeria since 1999. He drafted
and played a key role in the advocacy of several justice sector reform bills
including the National Human Rights Commission Act Amendment Bill, the Legal
Aid Council Act Amendment Bill, the Prisons Act Amendment Bill, the
Administration of Criminal Justice Bill and the bill for the Prevention of
Torture.
He
drafted the Nigeria’s National Action Plan on Human Rights which is the basis
for the evaluation of Nigeria’s human rights record especially at the United
Nations. He is acknowledged to have supervised the first comprehensive audit of
the all the 234 Prison facilities in Nigeria concluded in 2012. He was
Chairperson of the Nigerian Bar Association Justice Sector Reform Committee; he
is two time recipient of the NBA Presidents Bar Excellence Award. He is
presently the General Secretary of West African Bar Association and a member of
the International Bar Association.
Fapohunda
is the Deputy Secretary- General of the UK Based Penal Reform International. He
is the facilitator of the African NGOs Initiative to the United Nations Human
Rights Council.