NBA defends boss Usoro against EFCC over alleged N1.4bn fraud

- The NBA National Executive Council says the EFCC cannot probe into lawyer-client relationships

- It claims that in the case of the anti-corruption agency against its president Usoro, the lawyer was merely paid by the the Akwa Ibom government

- Usoro, on his part, claims he was completely innocent because he had done nothing wrong

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has said that the Economic and Financial Commission (EFCC) lacked the right to meddle in client-lawyer contractual relationship.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the NBA made the assertion in a communique which was issued at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja.

According to the report, the lawyers' association insisted that the fees that are paid by a client to his lawyer was not only a matter of privilege but also contractual.

NBA president Paul Usoro (SAN) told journalists that the NEC deliberated and adopted as its resolution, a report he forwarded to the EFCC in respect of criminal charges filed against him by the federal government.

NAN reports that Usoro was speaking against the background of his impending arraignment on Monday, December 3 in a federal high court in Lagos, over money laundering allegations leveled against him by the EFCC to the tune of N1.4billion.

NBA NEC observed that the inflow was payment by Gov. Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom state in respect of an Election Petition Appeal that was determined by the Supreme Court, of which Usoro served as the coordinating counsel.

The NEC said it observed that the EFCC appeared to be straining hard to criminalise the fees that were earned by lawyers for their legitimate work.

“Usoro’s case is not the first of these intrusions; we all recall the case of Mike Ozekhome, (SAN) when the EFCC attempted to forfeit his fees on the pretext that the funds came from illegal sources.

“If these EFCC incursions are not checked, the Bar and the practice of our profession are doomed.

“That independence and the courage of the advocate are now being threatened and trampled upon by the EFCC.

“Lawyers now have to work and walk on tip-toe, looking over their shoulders to determine whether the EFCC would be coming after them solely on account of their courage and independence in advocacy.

“That does not bode well for the profession or for legal practice generally.”

The association held that client-lawyer privilege had judicially and historically acknowledged that issues of fees, as between a lawyer and his client, was a matter of privilege.

“The recent decision of the Court of Appeal that was delivered on June 14, 2017 between Central Bank of Nigeria v Registered Trustees of the NBA affirmed this position.

“By questioning lawyers on the legitimate fees that they have earned from clients, the EFCC is breaching the lawyer-client privilege and showing complete disregard for the judgments of the courts in this regard,” NBA said.

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“As we all know, non-parties to a contract are complete strangers thereto and lack the locus standi to question and/or determine the propriety of such contract(s).

“The EFCC stands in that position in this and other matters of this nature; it lacks the locus standi to question the basis for the fees.”

Legit.ng had reported earlier that the president of the NBA, Paul Usoro, was charged with an alleged fraud of N1.4bn by the EFCC.

The NBA boss was charged before Justice Muslim Hassan of the Federal High Court in Lagos.

In the charge sheet marked FHC/418c/18, the anti-graft agency alleged that Usoro converted and laundered the money in connivance with the governor of his state, Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom.

The EFCC, however, noted that Emmanuel is “currently constitutionally immune against criminal prosecution” and did not list him on the sheet.

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