YUSUF Olaolu ALI, SAN – Iconic in Legal Practice and Scholarship
Born over six decades ago, Mallam Yusuf Olaolu Ali, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, is the Principal Partner of the Ilorin, Kwara State headquartered Yusuf Ali & Co. (Ghalib Chambers), a leading law firm in Nigeria that parades lawyers with vast experience in various practice areas, all of who are dedicated legal practitioners, specialising in the practice of all aspects of corporate, commercial and financial law in the country.
Rising from a humble beginning, Ali, who attributes his foray into the Law profession as a result of a divine ordering of his life and steps by the Almighty Allah, has combined such virtues as faith (in God), hard work, passion (for the profession), integrity, honesty, humility and patience to attain the pinnacle of the profession, becoming a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in 1997.
He is, today, not only an iconic legal practitioner who is renowned and respected across Nigeria and beyond its shores, but an inspiration to present and upcoming generations of lawyers, other professionals, and even a myriad of people in the larger society whom he has touched at one time or the other and in one way or another with his philanthropic gestures that cut across creeds and communities.
Young Yusuf started his early educational life, when he was enrolled in a local Quranic school and in a formal school in 1960. After his primary education, he went to a secondary modern school for three years, he worked briefly before he gained admission to Ibadan Boys High School, Ibadan, where he passed his school certificate with grade one. He was the Labour Prefect He again worked briefly as a clerical officer in the old Oyo state Ministry of Finance as a tax officer posted to Igboora in 1977 and at Lagelu Grammar School as a Laboratory Attendant in 1978. He gained admission to the then University of Ife, now (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife) in 1978 and graduated with a 2nd Class Upper Division for his Bachelor of Laws degree. He was a winner of the prestigious Federal Merit Award for undergraduates and a University Scholar while an undergraduate at Ife. He attended the Nigerian Law School, where he also passed with a 2nd Class Upper Division. About a decade after graduation, Yusuf Ali went back to his alma mater for his Masters programme which he completed with flying colours in 1991 when he bagged his LLM. He was appointed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria in 1989, as a Notary Public. He attained the highest professional honor at the Nigerian Bar in 1997, when he was conferred with the prestigious and honorable title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria , S.A.N. Yusuf Ali has been in active legal practice since the time he was called to the bar.
He joined the law Firm of Adegboyega Awomolo & Co in 1983 and rose to become a partner before he left to found his own law Firm Ghalib chambers, in June 1994 with offices at Ilorin, Lagos and Abuja.
Yusuf Ali SAN is a member of many professional bodies such as: Nigerian Bar Association; International Bar Association; American Bar Association; Commonwealth Lawyers Association, among others.
An Associate Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Ilorin, he has delivered more than 300 papers on different and diverse topics at various fora, including the International Bar Association Conferences, Commonwealth Law Association conferences , Annual Conferences of the Nigerian Bar Association, among others. He had contributed more than 20 Chapters to various legal books and has to his credit more than 40 published learned articles in learned journals in the field of litigation, Commercial Law, jurisprudence , practice and procedure, constitutional law, in local and international law journals. He is a litigator and arbitrator per excellence and has transversed all the superior courts of record from the high courts to the Supreme Court in the course of his over three decades of legal practice. He has also acted as counsel and arbitrator in many arbitral proceedings. He is knowledgeable in Islamic finance and jurisprudence and has attended many arbitral conferences within and outside the shores of Nigeria especially those organised by IBA and ABA.
He is the Author of the book, “Anatomy of Corruption In Nigeria: Issues, Challenges And Solutions.” A well travelled man, Ali has visited all the continents of the world for professional and educational purposes.
A very passionate philanthropist that he is, Yusuf Ali has been using the vehicle of YUSUF O. ALI FOUNDATION of which he is the Founder and sole Financier so far, to intervene in many public institutions by donating: A Twin Dormitory of 40 bed spaces to the University of Ilorin; an Eighty bed Hostel to the Osun State University; a Ten Bed fully equipped Advanced Trauma Centre to the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital; Thirty unit ICT center to the Faculty of Law Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife; Thirty unit ICT center to the College of Law, Crescent University Abeokuta Ogun State; Endowment of the Crescent University College of Law Building; Forty unit E Resource center to the Kwara State polytechnic , Ilorin; A brand new Kia Rio 2014 Model to the University of Ibadan for the use of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies of the university; and a Twenty Room Luxurious Hostel to Fountain University, Osogbo, just to mention a very few.
In recognition and appreciation of his consistently rising status and exemplary contributions to scholarship, the profession and the larger society, he has won and conferred with many fellowships such as: Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, (FCIArb) (UK); Fellow Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb) (Nigeria); Member Chartered Institute of Taxation Nigeria (CITN); Fellow Society for Peace Studies and Practice (FSPSP); Fellow Dispute Resolution Institute (F. DRI); Honourary Fellow, Nigerian Minning And Geosciences Society.
Additionally, Yusuf Ali has been awarded more than 250 honours from within and outside of Nigeria. He is listed in the American Biograhical Institute’s Who is Who, as well as in Nigeria’s Who is Who.
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