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Meet our Discussant – Prof. Olajide Olagunju

Professor Olajide Olagunju, PhD, FCIArb, FICMC, Attorney-at-Law, Chartered International Arbitrator and Mediator, Government, Business and Educational Leader, is Bakke Graduate University (BGU) Professor of Conflict Resolution, Peace Building and Organizational and Business Dispute Resolution. He pioneered the professional practice of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Nigeria in 1995, co-founded the Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators (ICMC) in 1999 and co-founded and directed Salem University ADR Studies Program in 2011. He pioneered the teaching of ADR at both the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) and the Nigerian Law School in 1996. His first ADR book, Commercial Mediation – An Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Mechanism, was made the Nigerian Law School’s first reference material in ADR in 1998.

Professor Olagunju has for three decades specialized in conflict resolution with a broad experience with government, academia, international organizations, Fortune 500 and nonprofits, including World Bank, United Nations, United States, Harvard University and Chevron

Corporation. A student-centered professor with multidisciplinary expertise in Law, Peace Studies, Anthropology, French Language, and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), he wrote in addition to his book in six international languages, “How to Resolve a Conflict” – Winner, Best Alternative Dispute Resolution eBooks of All Time; the books “African Art as Hegemony and Other Essays in Cultural Anthropology”; and “Legal Theft – Making Law for Underdevelopment and Conflict: the Problem with Nigeria.”

Professor Olagunju has contributed severally to Federal Government multisectoral policymaking, herdsmen-farmer conflict resolution, and acted as Special Adviser, Labour, Conflict Management and Law, leading to the December 2012 resolution of the conflict preventing the privatization of the Nigerian electric power sector, which impacts electricity supply in five West African countries. He contributed to the legislation of Nigeria’s pioneer subnational ADR legislation, the first Lagos State Citizens Mediation Centre (CMC) Law. He collaborated with the State’s Attorney General, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, to train and certify the CMC attorney-mediators between 1999 and 2007. He also worked with Nigeria’s federal legislature to establish the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) whose Act pioneered the statutory incorporation of ADR as mandatory in public sector dispute resolution.

Professor Olagunju has impacted over two hundred million people, locally and internationally, through leadership in government, private and educational sectors.

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