Fidelis Oditah

Professor Fidelis Oditah, QC, SAN, LLB (Lagos), MA, BCL, DPhil (Oxon), is an English barrister, an authority on insolvency law, and a prospective Governor of Delta State in Nigeria.

Fidelis Oditah was born in Nigeria in 1964.

At the age of twenty he graduated from the University of Lagos with a first-class degree in law and twelve of the thirteen available prizes (1984). The following year, he graduated with the highest first-class honours awarded that year by the Nigerian Law School (1985). In the next year he was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship enabling him to study at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College 1986-89), where he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law (1987) and of Doctor of Philosophy (1989), completing his DPhil thesis in only two years.

Oditah was called to the bar (Lincoln's Inn) in 1992 and became a Queen's Counsel in 2003, aged thirty-nine, and after only eleven years at the bar.

Oditah is best known his book, "Legal Aspects of Receivables Financing" (1990) which is the leading English legal text in its field. The book is an expanded version of his doctoral thesis.

Oditah was a Fellow and Tutor in Law at Merton College, Oxford and Travers Smith Braithwaite Lecturer in Corporate Finance Law in the University of Oxford from 1989 to 1997. He resigned in order to practice full time at the English bar. He remains a visiting professor at the Oxford University Faculty of Law (2000-). He also served as a consultant to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) from 1995 to 1999.

Cases in which Oditah have appeared in include "On Demand Information plc & ors v Michael Gerson" [2002] 2 WLR 919 (HL), "Cadbury Schweppes plc v Somji" [2001] 1 WLR 615 (CA), "Re ASRS Establishment Ltd" [2000] 2 BCLC 631 (CA) and "BCCI v Akindele" [2001] Ch 437 (CA).

Oditah is currently a candidate for the office of Governor of Delta State in Nigeria.

External links

* [http://www.southsquare.com/fidelis_oditah.html Professional website]
* [http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/politics/november06/27112006/p427112006.html Imene Johnson, Communal interest and the Oditah challenge in Delta politics, "Vanguard" (27 November 2006)]