ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YUSUF ALI LITERARY CAMPAIGN GRANT
FROM 2012 TILL DATE
culled
from :http://punchng.com/social-media-killing-reading-culture-yusuf-ali/
Barrister
Yusuf Ali, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is a man of many parts. Apart from
immersing himself in his law practice, which is his first love, the man is
passionate about reading and writing
He
is also one of Nigeria’s newest authors and his book, titled Anatomy of
Corruption in Nigeria: Issues, Challenges and Solutions, underscores the fact
that corruption has wreaked much havoc on the country, its polity and every
pore of the Nigerian society.
Today,
Ali’s passion for literary promotion and development has found expression in
his sponsorship of some of the key programmes of the Association of Nigerian
Authors, which is the umbrella body for creative writers in the country. For
the fourth consecutive year, for example, the author and philanthropist has
provided funding for the annual ANA/Yusuf Ali Literary Awareness Campaign,
ANA/Yusuf Ali Creative Writing Workshop and ANA/Yusuf Ali Short Story Writing
Competition for higher institutions in Benue and Kwara States.
Explaining,
in an interview with Punch correspondent, why he is so driven to support the
activities of the Association of Nigerian Authors financially and to promote
literary creativity in the country, he says, “Any perceptive person knows that
the awareness for literature and its development is very low in this country
nowadays. A lot of things have taken away the people’s appetite to read or
write. Many Nigerians no longer pay attention to literature and the need for a
robust reading culture.”
An
opportunity to do something about the situation eventually landed in Ali’s laps
and he had felt immensely relieved. He says, “While I was interacting with the
past leadership of ANA sometime ago, the idea of providing sponsorship for a
literary awareness campaign in the country came up. I think we should all pay
attention to any type of campaign that will promote reading and writing.”
UTILIZATION OF THE FUNDS BY ANA SINCE 2012 TILL DATE
2012 -2014
In 2012, all state chapters of the
Association received sub-grants, at various times, between 2012-2014, for local
literary awareness campaigns involving secondary schools across the country.
2015
In 2015, the grant was applied by
the then National Executive Council of ANA to host a workshop on fiction
writing in Abuja in which about 25 students, drawn from tertiary institutions
across the country via a competitive process, participated.
2016
In 2016, the Denja Abdullahi-led
National Executive Council of ANA took the literary awareness campaign a notch
further by focusing on innovative literary awareness campaign among tertiary
institutions across the country through the state chapters.
2017
The grant was used in 2017 to
publish three children’s literature titles under the Nigerian Writers Series
(NWS), which have been distributed to chapters of ANA nationwide to power ANA
‘s A-Book-A-Child nationwide project that was flagged off at the association’s
36 th International Convention, which held in Makurdi, Benue State, in October,
2017, and the Phase 2 of it launched by the wife of the Governor of Ekiti
State, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, at the 37 the International Convention of the
Association held in Ikeja, Lagos, last year.
2018
The 2018 grant was deployed to
facilitating a comprehensive media supplement on the projects executed with the
yearly grants over the years and an intensive workshop for 15 selected chairmen
of ANA chapters focusing on “Innovations in Contemporary Literary Awareness
Campaigns” to deepen the execution of the project in the coming years.
2019
The association under the national
leadership of Mallam Denja Abdulahi has devolved the fund to some selected
state chapters of ANA to carry out innovative and cutting edge literary
awareness campaigns in their domains as contained in the capacity building
workshop held in Ilorin in 2018
ABOUT YUSUF OLAOLU ALI SAN
Yusuf Ali Esq.; SAN started his
early life by been 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.
He gained admission to the 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 for over three decades.
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 in June 1994.
He is the Principal and Founder of
the Law Firm, Yusuf O. Ali & Co, Ghalib Chambers, with offices at ILORIN,
Lagos and Abuja with Ilorin as the head office .
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.
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.
Yusuf Ali SAN also served and is
still serving on boards of many Companies and Institutions. He was the Chairman
Kwara State Law Reform Committee. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of
Al-Hikmah University Ilorin. He was the pioneer Chairman, Council of Public
Defenders Kwara state. He is the Chairman Board of Directors Apex Microfinance
Bank Ltd
Yusuf Ali SAN held and still holds
many professional offices including but not limited to :
- Sole Judge of the Kwara State Local Government Election
Petition Tribunal 1996
- Member Kwara State Local Government Election Appeal
Tribunal 1997
- Life Member, Body of Benchers
- Member National Executive Committee, Nigerian Bar
Association
- Former Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Nigerian Bar
Journal
- Former Chairman of the NBA Committee on the Rule Of Law
- Pioneer Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association Section on
Legal Practice (SLP)
- Pioneer Chairman of the NBA Anti-corruption Commission.
- News Letter Editor International Bar Association
Committee on Damages and Negligence.
- Member of Council, Commonwealth Lawyers Association.
- Member Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee of
the Body of Benchers.
- He is the Vice Chairman of the International Bar
Association committee on Damages and Negligence.
- He is a member of the NBA ILORIN Council of Elders.
- He was co opted into the Council of the University of
ILORIN in 1995 to probe the bursary of that university.
- He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the ILORIN
Central Mosque.
- Chairman Alanu Trust Fund of the University of Ilorin
Teaching Hospital.
Mr. Yusuf Ali SAN is a Patron and
Legal Adviser to many professional and socio cultural groups all over Nigeria.
He is also an Associate Lecturer, at the Faculty of Law, University of Ilorin.
He has delivered more than Two Hundred papers on different and diverse topics
at various foray, including the International Bar Association Conferences,
Commonwealth Law Association conferences , Annual Conferences of the Nigerian
Bar Association, among others.
He had contributed more than 17
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 had represented many state governments, high net
worth Individuals, Corporate and Institutional Clients before all the superior
courts of record from the high court to the Supreme Court in many landmark
cases.
Yusuf Ali has been awarded more than
100 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.
A few of the over 100 awards
conferred on him are:
- Lifetime Achievement Award by the Governing Board of
Editors of the American Biographical Insitute
- West Africa International Golden Award for Excellence
in Enterprise
- Award of Excellence presented by AIESEC ILORIN
- Award of Excellence as a Doyen of Legal Luminary in
Nigeria by Nigerian Vogue
- Special Award by FIDA KWARA
- Award of Excellence by the National Association of
Muslim Law Students, National Headquarters, Abuja.
- Distinguished Personality Award presented by the
Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan
- Merit Award by the Nigerian Institute of Management,
Kwara State Branch
- Award of Excellence by the National Association of
Polytechnic Students
- Award of Excellence by the Students' Union of the
University of Ilorin
- Award of Exemplary Leadership and Service by Rotary
Club, Ilorin
- Merit Award by the Ibadan Boys High School Old Boys
Association
- Merit Award by All Nigeria Confederation of Principals
of Secondary Schools, Osun State Branch
- Kwame Nkrumah Leadership Award of 2010 Africa Legal
Icon by All Africa Students' Union
- Award by the NBA Women Forum for Immense Contribution
and Activities to the Forum
- Police Friendly Award 2009 by the KWARA State Police
Command
- Kwame Nkrumah Leadership Award on Education Per
Excellence/Icon of Societal Development by the West African Students'
Union
- Commander of Great IFE , (COI) by the OBAFEMI Awolowo
university national Alumni.
- Honorary Degree of Doctor Of Letters (Honoris Causa) of
Al HIKMA University .
He is very passionate about philanthropy
and using the vehicle of YUSUF ALI FOUNDATION of which he is the Founder and
sole Financier so far, had intervened in many public institutions by donating:
- A Twin Dormitary to the University of ILORIN.
- An Eighty bed Hostel to the OSUN State University.
- A Ten Bed 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 ICT 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.
In the recent past, in order to
enhance the work of the KWARA state police command, he donated a well equipped
patrol van and some units of motorcycles .
The Yusuf Ali Foundation does a lot
of other charity work like award of scholarships to indigent students in
secondary and tertiary institutions both in Nigeria and outside, provision of
wells and boreholes to communities, medical financial assistance to patients
both within the country and outside and the development of literary awareness
in secondary schools all over the country by entering into an annual
sponsorship with the Association of Nigerian Authors.
Yusuf Ali is a well travelled man
and has visited all the continents of the world for professional and
educational purposes.
