Christmas comes early for Carol Aina with JAMBAR honour
Published:Friday | December 27, 2024 | 12:06 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
Being awarded by the Jamaican Bar Association (JAMBAR) midway into the festive season, is the best Christmas gift Olubanke Adenike Carol Aina, principal of the Norman Manley Law School, says she could have received this year.
GREAT HONOUR
After serving the Norman Manley Law School for 27 years, and 12 years as principal, she was elated to be formally recognised by JAMBAR on December 15 during their Annual Awards Luncheon event which was held at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.
She told Living that she “has no regrets” about returning to Jamaica and said she felt “absolutely humbled, privileged and ecstatic” about being awarded.
“Coming back to Jamaica was the best thing I ever did, and I wanted my son, who was also born in the UK, to be brought up in Jamaica, and he now works here and we’re both absolutely rooted in our Jamaican identity,” Aina said.
“I came back to Jamaica because I wanted to contribute. I came back as a lawyer with 10 years qualified, and I wanted to contribute to Jamaica, to the growth of Jamaica, and I think I’ve done so with my service at the law school, and my service to the Jamaica Bar Association,” she said.
Having been born in Great Britain to a Jamaican mother and Nigerian father and living in the United Kingdom (UK), during her teenage years, Aina came to Jamaica for her secondary education. She later returned to England in 1976, but Jamaica remained on her mind, especially after she became a trained solicitor and after being admitted to practice in 1988, so she returned to Jamaica in 1995 with her nine-year-old son at the time, Tari Lovell, who now serves as the chief marketing officer of Digicel Jamaica.
Dr Herbert Blassengale, her husband, a chiropractor who works in the United States, was present to witness her being awarded at the hotel, and was equally elated.
“It’s a great honour that she’s being presented. She has done well. She’s at the top of her profession. She’s very level-headed. She weighs things out. She knows how to manage difficult situations. Overall, a great woman,” Dr Blassengale, who met his beloved wife on a flight over six years ago, told Living.
For her son’s part, Lovell said he too is elated.
“It’s an amazing honour. It’s a true representation of a phenomenal career. It goes to show the amount of work and dedication she has put into her career and it’s truly amazing and I’m proud of her,” Lovell said at the event.
When Aina told Lovell she intended to move to Jamaica, the then nine-year-old didn’t want to leave the place he had called home.
“I was very much acclimatised to my life in London at the time, had my friends, a life, but I think it was one of the best decisions that she made, not just for herself, but also for me in terms of the growth and the experience I was able to get and a different level of culture, especially somewhere like Jamaica, [being] raised around black people. I think that gave me a level-headed [grounding and] that allowed me to be successful in my life,” he said.
Aina says her best achievement in Jamaica to date, is the reform of the Civil Procedure Rules, because when she returned to Jamaica the practice was difficult.
“When I returned to Jamaica in 1995, the practice was difficult, civil litigation was difficult, and I think [the] reform of those rules really helped to move our court system and processes, and I would say being involved in that process is something that I’m very proud of,” she said.