Mr. Henry Ajumogobia, OFR, SAN
Fellow
Mr. Ajumogobia is a Harvard trained lawyer and Nigeria’s former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources. He is currently a senior partner in the leading corporate/commercial law firm of Ajumogobia & Okeke that he co-founded in 1984.
A fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb UK, 1996) Mr. Odein Ajumogobia obtained his law degrees from the University of Lagos (LL.B Hons) and Harvard Law School (LL.M). He was conferred with the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 2003, having been called to the Nigerian bar in 1979. For six years (2001 to 2006) Mr. Ajumogobia was a member of the Paris based ICC International Court of Arbitration and ICC International Commission on Arbitration.
After more than two decades as a busy private legal practitioner between 1980 and 2003, providing legal services to a broad range of international businesses and Nigerian corporate entities and individuals, Mr. Ajumogobia entered public service, following his appointment as Rivers State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice between 2003 and 2007. He was appointed Minister of State for Energy (Petroleum) and head of Nigeria’s delegation to OPEC (July 2007 to December 2008), and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources between January 2009 and April 2010 by the late President Umaru Musa Yar Adua GCFR.
On April 6 2010, he was appointed Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan GCFR and served until the dissolution of the Federal Cabinet on May 29, 2011 when he returned to his legal practice. He was conferred with the National honour of Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) on September 6, 2010 and on May 5th, 2012 Mr. Ajumogobia was admitted to the degree of LL.D (honoris causa) by the Rivers State University of Science and Technology.