A civil society organisation, Empowerment for Unemployed Youth Initiative, EUYI, has filed a formal petition to the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, urging disciplinary action on a group of lawyers accused of orchestrating a smear campaign against Mele Kyari, the former Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL.
At a press conference in Abuja on May 8, EUYI’s leaders, Solomon Adodo, Comrade Danesi Momoh, and Igwe Ude-umanta alleged that the protests demanding Kyari’s prosecution were “heavily financed campaigns of calumny”; carried out by “hired hands,”; some of whom allegedly impersonated legal professionals.
Adodo described the protests led by the so-called Guardians of Democracy and the Rule of Law as a “multidimensional mischief”; lacking credibility.
“There is nothing in those protests other than mischief. The retraction and apology by Comrade Kabir Matazu exposed the campaign as blackmail,”; he said, referring to Matazu’s admission that he had been misled by a member of the House of Representatives.
“In some of the protests, they have called for the trial of Mele Kyari, before turning around to say that he should be investigated. We are therefore worried that ‘a group of lawyers’ could call for the trial of a person who is yet to be investigated, the text added.
Consequently, the group requested the NBA “to launch an investigation and ascertain whether Barr. Aminu Bello, Rotimi Adeyemo, Benjamin Theophilus, Emmanuel Agada and Asika Raymond, who are persons that variously claimed to be leaders of the group have been called to the Nigerian Bar with valid practicing licenses.
“We suspect that some of them may not even be lawyers. And if they are, we contend that their activities are unethical and should be scrutinized.
“Having determined their status as lawyers, we urge the NBA to compel them to provide details of the 500 lawyers whom they claim are pursuing the probe or trial matter against Kyari. It is opprobrious to dress persons in lawyers attires to impersonate the legal profession.
The group concluded by expressing confidence in the ability of the NBA to uphold the legal profession, noting that, “their findings may provide the appropriate sanitizer that we need in the civil society space and it is our hope that at some point in this matter, the security agencies will step in to identify those who paraded as lawyers when they are not. We reiterate that there must a limit to chicanery and madness!”;
