Born in 1957 in Lagos, Oluyemi Oluleke Osinbajo is a lawyer, teacher and spiritual leader. He assumed office as the Vice-President of Nigeria on 29 May 2015 under the current President Muhammadu Buhari. Osinbajo became acting president of Nigeria during Buhari’s prolonged absence in early 2017.

 

Osinbajo began his career as a law lecturer at the University of Lagos in Nigeria. During this time, he also served as a litigations adviser to  Attorney General and Minister of Justice Bola Ajibola from 1988 to 1992. Later, he became a law professor and was the department head of public law. He also held positions as a member of the cabinet, the justice ministry of Lagos State, and as the attorney general and commissioner of justice from 1999-2007. During his tenure, Osinbajo implemented significant judicial reforms in Lagos State, addressing important areas such as judges’ recruitment, remuneration, training and discipline. He also established the Directorate for Citizens’ Rights (DCR), which provides quick and free access to justice for all residents of Lagos State, and the Office of the Public Defender (OPD), which was designed to help the needy. In 2007, he returned to teaching and simultaneously held a senior partner position at Simmons Cooper Partners (Barristers and Solicitors) in Nigeria. It was during this time that his national political career commenced with the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013. He was charged, along with a group of other notable Nigerians, to design and produce a manifesto for the new political party, which they called the ‘Roadmap to a new Nigeria.’ 

 

Prior to his inauguration as vice-president, he was the pastor in charge of Lagos Province 48 (Olive Tree provincial headquarters) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.A graduate of the University of Lagos (LLB, 1978), Osinbajo holds a master’s in law from the London School of Economics (LLM, 1980). He holds the prestigious title of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). He is the ethics adviser to the African Development Bank’s advisory board and a non-executive director of Citibank. He has also served in various roles within the United Nations including at the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, United Nations African Institute for Crime Prevention, the United Nations Peace Operations in Somalia, as well as the International Criminal Court for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. Yemi Osinbajo is a co-founder and board member of the Convention on Business Integrity and the Justice Research Institute Ltd.