BENJAMIN OMOIKE
LAGOS, Nigeria – Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ), has pledged its commitment to advancing women’s leadership in Nigeria and beyond. In like manner, the Non-profit organisation disclosed efforts to address significant gender disparity within the Nigerian legal profession.
These efforts were disclosed at a media parley held at the WIMBIZ headquarters in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Thursday.
The event, attended by key board members, including Bisi Adeyemi, Chairman of the Board of Trustees; Executive Director, Omowumi Akingbohunge; and Rolake Akinkugbe-Filani, served as a platform to highlight past achievements, unveil new initiatives, and strengthen partnerships with the media and stakeholders, alike.
In her remarks, Akingbohunge extolled WIMBIZ’s 24-year journey, emphasising that the organisation has empowered over 340,000 women across 23 countries. “From leadership mentoring, to advocacy for gender parity in boardrooms, WIMBIZ has remained a beacon of support. The “Women on Board” initiative alone has produced over 500 board-ready women, with 130 mentees graduating last year. Their impact also extended to community outreach, with over 500 families in local communities receiving relief materials.”
With regards to restoring parity and gender balance in the legal profession, a report published by the International Bar Association Legal Policy & Research Unit disclosed that women make up approximately 40 per cent of all lawyers in Nigeria.
The country’s public sector has the highest representation of women in senior positions, with 61 per cent of practitioners being female, followed by the corporate sector, with 55 per cent. Law firms have the second lowest number of women in senior roles (43 per cent), behind the judiciary (33 per cent). Also, only four per cent of the over 700 Senior Advocates of Nigeria are female.
Speaking on the gender imbalance in the profession, the Executive Director of WIMBIZ, Omowunmi Akingbohungbe, said the organisation has identified “some key major gaps” in the legal sector, with the underrepresentation of women as SANs being a prime example.
To tackle this imbalance, WIMBIZ has initiated several key activities aimed at sensitising and empowering women in the legal profession, both upcoming and experienced, to attain leadership positions.
She said, “I must reiterate that for the year 2025, we have a special focus on women in law. We have identified some key major gaps in that sector. So we’re trying to address these gaps and get professionals in that space to amplify the gaps and also sensitise women, upcoming lawyers, and existing ones on how they can attain leadership positions.
“We started that initiative first of all through this webinar where we had Justices here in Nigeria as well as the Senior Advocates (of Nigeria) come to talk about their stories and journey as far as getting to these positions, the barriers they faced, and how they were able to navigate it.
“Then we had the stakeholder session, which is also focused on women in law. This was a gathering of judges, law firm partners, chief legal counsels of corporate organisations, as well as senior advocates, both male and female. We came together to discuss the barriers that exist as well as the leadership pathways, four of which we have identified.
“And having a breakout session, each of them dialogue on what can be done to make the journey easier when you’re a woman. So from this stakeholder dialogue session, we were able to get insights, directions and pathways, four of them to be precise that we are going to put in a journal which will be easily accessible for people in law school as well as lawyers who are just about to graduate so it becomes a reference point that they can refer to and see how they’re going to navigate the journey.”
Akingbohungbe noted that a major outcome of the engagements is the Women in Law Mentoring Programme.
“That’s another gap there. So this forum was pretty much sensitising women on how they can go about acquiring properties, the savings and initiatives that they can leverage to make acquiring their property easier for them,” she said.
“The expected outcome is that each mentee in this mentoring programme has a work plan that they want to run with for the next five years or 10 years, as the case may be, in attaining the position that they aspire to be. It’s a three-month programme, and it will be a bi-weekly session, and it’s also happening virtually,” Akingbohungbe noted.
Beyond bridging the gap in the law profession, she noted that WIMBIZ was also sensitising women with respect to property ownership.
Through these targeted initiatives, WIMBIZ is actively working to amplify the awareness of the gender gap within the senior ranks of the Nigerian legal profession and provide concrete support and guidance to empower women to ascend to these leadership positions, ultimately aiming for a more balanced and inclusive legal landscape.
“This is a group mentoring session where we get all the registered participants and mentees to be sensitised, first on the leadership pathways that we’ve identified from the previous stakeholder engagement, get them to determine what pathway they want to pursue, and then they are mentored along that pathway.
Equally speaking at the event, WIMBIZ Board Chair, Bisi Adeyemi, stressed the organisation’s broader commitment to addressing injustice, stating that they were monitoring certain developments and would “speak up if necessary.” On the Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan case at the National Assembly, she stated that the association was monitoring the situation closely.
“We are monitoring the situation and as soon as we see injustice going on, we will step into the situation,” Adeyemi said.
A WIMBIZ board of trustees member, Rolake Akinkugbe-Filani, highlighted the misconception that promoting women in leadership is tokenism, stressing that data supports the fact that inclusion makes both business and economic sense.
“I think one of the biggest misconceptions we have today, and it’s not just exclusive to Nigeria, it’s global, is that somehow encouraging more women in leadership is tokenism. Every time you have a conversation about having more women in leadership positions and having more women represented in different facets of life, the issue of pushing gender quotas or trying to push one agenda comes up.
“Whereas what people are missing is the fact that there is data to support and back up the fact that inclusion makes business sense and it makes economic sense. I think that’s one of the misconceptions we see.”
A major highlight of the parley was the organisation’s growing global footprint and structural progress. In 2024, WIMBIZ received NGO certification, placing it on par with public charities in the United States in terms of governance. The year also saw participation in international conferences and impactful roundtables, including campaigns that reached over 400,000 individuals during International Women’s Day. These efforts reflect WIMBIZ’s evolving role as a global voice in women’s development.
For 2025, WIMBIZ has identified new areas of focus, particularly in law, construction, and property ownership—sectors where significant gender gaps remain. Initiatives such as the “Women in Law” mentoring programme and stakeholder roundtables aim to increase female representation among senior advocates, judges, and corporate counsels.
Upcoming publications will serve as critical tools for young female professionals navigating career pathways in these male-dominated fields.
WIMBIZ is set to host its London Conference in June with the theme: “The Power of Us: Uniting for Impact,” followed by its flagship Annual Conference in November. Other impactful programmes include the Big Sister Initiative in schools, the Women on Board 7th cycle, and the Discount Corner for members.
The Media Parley concluded with a call for continued media partnership to spotlight women breaking barriers across industries. As Adeyemi aptly put it, “Without the media, we’d be dancing in the dark.”
