By Dr. May Ikeora-Amamgbo
There are women who lead loudly, and there are women whose leadership is felt in systems, standards, and the people they quietly shape. Hon. Justice Mabel Taiye Segun-Bello bel-ongs firmly to the latter category. In conversation with Raising Women Magazine, she reflects on mentorship not as performance, but as precision, responsibility, and structure. She speaks with unusual clarity about why younger women need more than inspiration, why visibility without substance is dangerous, and why women must learn to give of themselves without giving themselves away. At the centre of it all is a simple but demanding idea: build first, then speak.
What also becomes evident is that her perspective is not abstract. It has been formed over years of service, observation, and reform within the judiciary. Her work, including pioneering institutional innovations, reflects a commitment to justice that is not only pronounced, but experienced. It is this combination of thought, discipline, and execution that makes her voice both timely and necessary.
When you reflect on your path, what moment or experience do you consider the true foundation of the judge you have become today?
If I must identify a defining foundation, it would not be a single dramatic moment, but a series of quiet awakenings early in my judicial career, moments when I realized that justice is not merely about applying the law, but about restoring confidence in the system.
No one particular experience stands out: but presiding over matters for many years, I have seen how inefficiencies could erode trust. That realization formed the bedrock of my judicial philosophy that justice must be accessible, efficient, transparent, and humane.
That awareness shaped the judge I am today.
You pioneered the Digital Affidavit Registry Management System. What inspired this reform, and how important is collaboration in driving meaningful institutional change?
The Digital Affidavit Registry Management System was born out of necessity. I observed recurring bottlenecks in affidavit processing, manual systems prone to delay, opacity, and administrative inefficiency.
Innovation in the judiciary must always serve a higher purpose: transparency and accountability. The reform was inspired by a simple but powerful question,
“How can we make the system faster, safer, and more reliable for the ordinary citizen?”
However, no reform succeeds in isolation. Technology in a judicial environment requires collaboration between judicial officers, registry staff, ICT professionals, administrators, and policymakers. Institutional change is never a solo performance; it is an orchestra. When each stakeholder understands the shared objective then the transformation becomes sustainable.
How has collaboration shaped your professional growth and impact?
Collaboration has been one of the greatest gifts of my journey. I have benefited from wise mentors who challenged me, supportive colleagues and friends who refined my thinking, and diligent court staff who turned ideas into action. Professional growth is rarely self-made. It is cultivated in community. Diverse perspectives deepen wisdom. I remember a court staff in Wuse zone 2 Abuja, once told me to take our innovation to the Brekete family and I listened and obtained approval for this. That gave our process a huge visibility and publicity….so you see, everything was a consortium of ideas and suggestions.
Wherever I have achieved impact, it has been because collaboration multiplied my capacity. And for this I am deeply grateful.
Why is mentorship a collaborative responsibility, and what do you believe women in law most need from one another in this season?
I always say that mentorship is having someone whose hindsight provides insights for your foresight.
Mentorship is not optional; it is a necessity.
Every woman who ascends carries the responsibility to widen the path for others. In law, especially, where structural and societal expectations can be demanding, mentorship becomes a collaborative safety net.
Women in law today need three things from one another; Intentional support, actively recommending and positioning one another for opportunities; Honest guidance, sharing not only successes but lessons from mistakes.; Collective advocacy, speaking with one voice on issues that affect women in the profession.
We must move from silent admiration to active sponsorship.
You have spoken about mentorship in a way that is far more practical than the usual language of encouragement. What, to you, is the real difference between being admired and being mentored?
There is a difference between people seeing what you do and people understanding how you do it. Just recently, a lawyer from the Ministry of Justice appeared before me with two junior colleagues. He was articulate, sharp, and clearly capable. I asked him if he was mentoring them. He said yes, that they followed him to court and saw what he did.
But I told him that seeing is not enough. You must tell them how you do it, and why.
He had made an application and chosen only one leg of it. I knew why he had done that. He knew why he had done that. But when I asked the younger lawyers whether they understood the second leg of the application, it became obvious that the explanation had never really been given.
The moment he explained it properly; I could see the light return to their faces. Their interest changed immediately. Which means the issue was not that they lacked capacity. The issue was that no one had put light on their path.
That is what many older women are not doing enough of for younger women. They are not shortening the distance. They are not reducing the error. They are not giving direction and precision. If it took you five years to learn something, can another woman do it in two months because you already cut the grass enough? That is what mentorship should do.
“The problem was not capacity. The problem was that no one had put light on their path.”
That is such a striking distinction. So, mentorship, for you, is not just example. It is explanation.
Exactly. Mentorship has two sides. There is mentorship as mirror, where people learn by watching you. But there must also be mentorship as map, where you deliberately guide them.
People often speak of role models, and that is fine. But younger women do not only need someone to admire. They also need someone who can show them the road.
Sometimes that guidance happens in very ordinary conversations. You may think two women are simply talking, but one is actually helping the other to order her thinking, refine her direction, and avoid unnecessary mistakes. That is mentorship too.
“Mentorship is mirror, but it must also be map.”
You also made an important point about why you do not casually agree to mentor everyone who asks. Why is that?
Because mentorship is a relationship. It cannot be random. It cannot be built on access alone.
People say, “Mentor me,” as though mentorship is a title you hand out. It is not. It is costly. It requires time, energy, discernment, and sometimes even risk. If you mentor the wrong person, you can lose yourself in the process. You can drain yourself. You can even damage your reputation.
So, I vet people.
That does not mean I do not teach people. I teach people every day. But intentional mentorship is different.
It must begin with relationship, and relationship often begins with presence. As a younger person, one of the best ways to build that relationship is to find gaps you can fill. Be useful. Be resourceful. Be present enough that your seriousness can be seen.
What does that presence look like in practical terms?
Presence does not always mean money or influence. It means seriousness. It means consistency. It means adaptability.
There are people who have given me nothing materially, but they were present. They showed up. They paid attention. They made themselves useful and resourceful. Sometimes a young woman will attend an event where I am speaking, take photographs or short clips, and send them to me afterwards. She may say, “Ma, I took the liberty of recording this, I hope you do not mind.” In some cases, that ends up being the most useful record I have of that moment.
That is presence.
She may not have given me money. She may not have advanced my journey in any obvious way. But she was present enough, thoughtful enough, and serious enough to matter. And that presence creates a responsibility on my part as well.
“Presence shows seriousness. Adaptability shows wisdom.”
When you do decide to guide someone more intentionally, what are you looking for?
Two things, teachability index and productivity momentum.
Teachability index has two parts. First, willingness to learn. Second, willingness to change. Many people are willing to listen, but not willing to change. They attend programmes, they hear excellent things, they even feel inspired. But execution requires deliberate action.
Then there is productivity momentum. If I am handing you a baton, you cannot be standing still. I must see movement. I must see seriousness, drive, and follow through. I must see that you are not joking with your own future.
Nobody wastes light on a path that someone has no intention of walking.
You seem deeply concerned with women who have ability but are not fully deploying it. Who are the women your voice is really for?
My voice is for women who have ability, capacity, and talent but are not yet deploying at their highest level. Not always because they are unwilling to learn, but often because they have not seen a model to admire and a map to follow.
I recently encountered a young lawyer who told me she had lost her zeal for legal practice after the woman who had been speaking life into her passed away. That stayed with me. She was not saying she lacked intelligence. She was saying nobody was feeding her fire anymore. Nobody was asking how far she had gone. Nobody was helping her remain aligned with what she once knew she could become.
Those are the women my voice is curated for, women whose light is dimming not because they are empty, but because nobody is speaking to the fire.
In this age of social media and constant self-presentation, how do you think women should approach visibility?
Visibility is not wrong. In fact, visibility is important. If you do not say, “I am,” the world may never say, “Thou art.” Expertise must come out, because those who see should be able to read and run. That is how influence multiplies.
But visibility is now tied to accountability.
If you choose to be visible, it is only a matter of time before life tests what you have projected. And if you are found wanting, your decline begins there. In this era, people are called out very quickly. So, if what you are projecting has no real substance behind it, life itself will expose the gap.
That is why I say people must build before they post. They must build before they boast. If you begin with boasting, life may send you back to the elementary level to build again, if you still have the capacity.
“People must build before they post. They must build before they boast.”
That feels like one of the central tensions of our time, builders and boasters.
Yes, but life will sift them. It always does.
The point is not that everyone must become visible in the same way. Not everybody will be a public speaker. Not everybody even wants that kind of visibility. But every woman, in whatever space she occupies, should be making impact.
Visibility is layered. Some women become visible through the work of their own hands. Others become visible through the hands and lives of the people they have built. You may not be the loudest person in the room, but if you build another person well, that person may carry your voice much further than you ever could.
So no, we do not all have to be public speakers. But we can all be private builders.
“We do not all have to be public speakers, but we can all be private builders.”
You also said something that feels especially important for women, daughters, wives, mothers, and caregivers alike: “give of yourself, but do not give yourself away”. What does that mean to you?
It means there must be a balance between generosity and self-erasure.
I have seen women drop out of school so that their brothers can continue. I have seen women spend years giving everything to family, children, and marriage, only to wake up and realise they built everybody else but left nothing standing for themselves.
That is dangerous. Give, yes. But do not disappear. While you are breastfeeding, while you are doing school runs, while you are carrying responsibilities that may never be applauded, build yourself too.
Many of the capacities people see in me today were built in the middle of responsibility, not outside it. I was learning, refining, and building even while doing the ordinary labour of life.
That is why I say, give of yourself, but do not give yourself away.
What are you most grateful for in your journey, and how has gratitude influenced your leadership?
To be honest, I am deeply grateful for the privilege of service.
Gratitude has kept me grounded. It reminds me that leadership is not an entitlement; it is trust temporarily assigned to me. When one leads with gratitude, one listens more, judges more fairly, and serves more willingly.
Personally, I am grateful for family, mentors, and the grace of resilience. Professionally, I am grateful for opportunities to reform systems rather than merely operate within them like we did with the ARMS in the FCT Judiciary. I am grateful.
How can collaboration across the judiciary, legal practitioners, and policymakers address pressing challenges in Nigeria’s justice system?
In my 22 years on both the lower and higher Bench, I know that, Nigeria’s justice challenges are usually around case backlog, delay, infrastructural deficits, and public trust concerns, and all these cannot be solved in silos nor solved overnight.
There is need to collaborate with Legal practitioners to streamline procedures and discourage frivolous litigation; Policymakers to modernize laws; Technology experts to digitize processes responsibly.
Reform is most effective when it is systemic. When the Bench, the Bar, and policymakers align around efficiency and integrity, justice becomes not only pronounced, but experienced.
What lessons have you learned about balancing firmness, empathy, and collaboration?
Firmness without empathy breeds fear. Empathy without firmness breeds’ disorder. The balance lies in clarity of values. For instance, one can be respectful without being weak. One can be firm without being harsh.
Leadership is not about position, it is about influence, responsibility, and the courage to serve others with vision and integrity.
What is your vision for the future of justice and leadership when individuals and institutions work together?
My vision is of a justice system where: Processes are digitized and transparent. Delays are minimized through structural reform. Mentorship pipelines are intentional.
Women and men lead not in competition, but in complementarity.
Collaboration transforms isolated efforts into national progress.
