The major grouse lawyers, particularly, young lawyers have against Registrar General of CAC, AG Abubakar, is not that he is not performing or have not revolutionized ease of doing business, but he stopped lawyers from uncontrolled access to the Commission.
Prior to this COVID-19 induced out of the box reasoning of new norm, young lawyers turned CAC offices into their full time loitering ground and were derogatorily referred to as CAC lawyers.
This did not go down well with some observers in the legal industry, who maintained that, a lawyer was not called to the Bar to just be a Company & Allied Matters registration agent to the detriment of other fields of the law, particularly, court room advocacy.
This partial ban came into effect during the raging uncertainty of how to contain the spread of COVID-19. It was also put in place, to allow staff of the Commission to work without interruption from accredited agents.
Often times in the past, these agents use their personal relationship with the staff, to compromise staff into treating their files ahead and above those of other agents who do not have such relationship or know any staff.
But the success achieved by COVID-19 protocol, made it visible that one can work remotely and achieve greater result in record time and have time to delve into others spheres of life, to improve him or herself.
Against the above backdrop, we shall join Abubakar Yusuf, a Public Affairs Analyst to examine the achievements of Corporate Affairs Commission in the past three years, under the leadership of Alahaji Garba Abubakar, Esq., fondly called AG Abubakar by friends and foes.
According to Yusuf, there is no gain saying that successes and strides recorded by leaders are only felt when the leaders are no longer at the helms of affairs, that position may only be applicable to other areas, but definitely not in the current leadership of Corporate Affairs Commission CAC, under the management of Alhaji Garba Abubakar appointed on 7th, January in 2020.
For the Corporate Affairs Commission CAC, three years down the line, it was no longer business as usual, as all facets of it’s activities had embarked on reforms, innovations and massive reintegration to conform with the present realities in the country.
Though, appointed at the heat of health emergency of COVID pandemic, Alhaji Garba Abubakar turned the global pandemic challenges to an opportunity to embark on wholistic reforms in the Corporate Affairs Commission CAC.
Not minding both natural and artificial occurrences including the economic recession, he provided a veritable ground were policies and programs of the corporation hithero construed under analogue operations fused into digital world , with a view to providing and conforming with the high tech environment as the best practices.
With a highly motivated staffs and routinely trained in the new order, Garba Abubakar who grew through the rank to become the Registrar- General of the corporation in 2020, having served diligently some past chief executives of CAC.
Armed with the large resume, wealth of experience in the corporation’s activities spanned two decades, Alhaji Garba Abubakar who is a lawyer by profession, was handy to resolve not only operational issues of the corporation, but introduced new ones.
To mitigate the effects of COVID and economic recession, he embarked on massive free buisness registration to 500,000 Nigerians approved by the federal government to create jobs and also provide jobs for 100 Million Nigerians, fall out of the effects of COVID to cushion it’s dire effects.
The introduction of Company and Allied Matters Act CAMA 2020 among many other reforms had stabilized the process of registration and its operations in Nigeria devoid of any encumbrances. For CAC, gone were the days of unwanted delays both in company registration, renewal and annual returns among many others that had discouraged the maintenance and growth of business conglomerates cumbersome and discouraging, as the corporation had gone fully digital and online in its activities.
Alhaji Garba Abubakar through major reforms had encouraged investors and investments into the country as sharp practices, forgeries among many other unhealthy activities prevalent in the operation of the corporation was overtaken by sane practices, owing to innovations and initiatives brought on board by the new management.
He introduced measures to protect payment of dues and also sanction defaulters through the convening of one stop shop technology to detect fraudulent activities, been perpetrated by disgruntled Nigerians and their accomplices.
The Garba Abubakar led CAC has also introduced measures to track customers that defied payments of annual dues, revenues, backlogs among many others and collaborators within and outside the system, which had improved the revenue base of CAC.
The partnerships with conglomerates, agencies, unions and academic institutions to provide safe landing to their activities became fully operational, as the quantum contributions to SME’s earned the corporation an award of excellence recently presented by Nigeria’s Vice President , Professor Yemi Osinbanjo in Abuja.
The wholistic reforms embarked upon three years running had led to the proliferation of more business interests through companies registration and tripled investments. the emergence of the new Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited NNPCL, as a wholly business and commercial conglomerate among many others was a fall out of the operation of the Company and Allied Matters Act CAMA introduced by the Corporate Affairs Commission CAC in 2020.
The climax of the success story was a the introduction of Company and Allied Matters Act CAMA that encaspulates all the reforms being carried out by the new CAC under the leadership of Alhaji Garba Abubakar, the Registrar-General.
As the corporation moves to subsequent years, no doubt more reforms that will place the haven of investments in a vantage position will be unfolded, under the indefatigable leadership of the corporation.
