The Federal Government has revised its initial stance on the legal implications of the Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership recently inked with the United Kingdom.
This reconsideration follows public criticism, particularly from Nigerians expressing concerns about the perceived unilateral nature of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) sealed with the UK.
Addressing the matter, Nigerian Minister for Trade and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anite, used a thread on X to retract her previous statement, placing emphasis on the absence of any legal agreement between Nigeria and the UK.
Minister Uzoka-Anite underscored that Nigeria lacks a Mutual Recognition Agreement with the UK and has made no commitments under the MOU or elsewhere to permit UK-licensed lawyers to practice within Nigeria.
Earlier statements from the UK’s Department of Business and Trade, coupled with a tweet from Nigeria’s Minister of Trade and Investment, had initially indicated that Nigeria was entering into an agreement aimed at dismantling obstacles preventing UK lawyers from practicing international law in Nigeria.
In response to these developments, the Nigerian Bar Association denounced the purported agreement, describing the minister’s statement as “ridiculous, unpatriotic, and uninformed.”
This underscores the heightened scrutiny and critique surrounding the perceived one-sidedness of the deal and its potential implications for legal practice between the two nations.