COMMUNITY SERVICE UNIT
DIRECTOR, COMMUNITY SERVICE UNIT
Mrs. Tomi Bodude is a legal practitioner and an alumni of the Lagos State University Ojo.
She started practice with the legal firm of Adejare Kembi & Co where she gained tremendous exposure as a new wig. She subsequently joined the Lagos State Civil Service as a State Counsel in the year 2001 and served at the Directorate of Public Prosecutions as a prosecutor for about 9 years. She was thereafter deployed to the Directorate of Legislative Drafting where she served for 3 years, before being moved to the Lagos State Law Reform Commission as the pioneer Head Legal Department, in 2012.At the commission, she was the head of the legal team that produced the 2015 Laws of Lagos State Nigeria, a compendium of laws consisting of 233 reviewed/reformed laws. In January 2020 she was redeployed to the Directorate of Legislative Drafting where she assisted in drafting various key and instrumental legislations for the State.
She was appointed Director of the Lagos State Ministry of Justice Community Service Unit (CSU) in February, 2023. The CSU is the government institution created in the year 2012 to fulfil the provisions of Section 347 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Amendment (ACJL) Law of 2021. The ACJL affirms restorative justice as one of its objectives, and adopts rehabilitation and restoration of the offender as guiding principles for imposing punishment. Consequently, offenders serving community service sentences are usually minor offenders whose sentences are a form of social responsibility which ranges from an array of options, best guided by the needs of the locale in question. Examples of such responsibilities are sanitation responsibilities, farming, clearing roadside verges, helping the elderly in nursing homes, helping children in the children centre, helping the local fire or police service, cleaning streets, drainages in local areas and helping out in other areas lacking adequate government or community roles. The CSU is responsible for the implementation of the non-custodial sentences which help in the decongestion of prisons/correctional centres, rehabilitation of offenders and reduction of recidivism. There are currently 18 units of the CSU spread across the magisterial districts in the State.
Mrs. Bodude holds masters’ degrees: (LL.M in Legislative Drafting from the Nigerian Institute of Advance Legal Studies Lagos, and MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Ibadan). Her PhD degree is in view. She is a member of the Nigerian as well as the International Bar Associations. She has attended several local and international trainings, workshops and conferences including: Course on Legislative Drafting – Tulane Public Law Centre, New Orleans, USA; Workshop on Improvement of Case Flow Management across Judicial Institutions; as well as Workshop for Public Prosecutors in Lagos, Nigeria; She also attended the Conference on Legislation and Law Reform, and the Strategic Leadership Conference – both in Washington D.C, USA, etc.
Her other affiliations include membership of: The Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel; The Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators; and Clarity International. She is an associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators; and the Society for Peace Studies and Practice. She is a fellow of the Association of Corporate Governance Professionals of Nigeria; and a certified Public Policy Analyst.
Mrs. Bodude loves to read, listen to music and travel. She is happily married with children.