March 14, 2016
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- Law News, Nigeria News
Case: Nigerian Bar Association v. G.T. Ahembe
Decision by: Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee of the Body of Benchers
- Chief Joseph Daudu (SAN) – Chairman
- Justice Abdu Aboki, J.C.A. – member
- Yusuf Ali (SAN) – member
- Emmanuel Ukala (SAN) – member
- R.A. Rabana (SAN) – member
- Edward Pwajok – member
- Tijani Dutse – member
Date: July 18, 2013
The complaint
The complaint against the respondent, as filed by the complainant, is as follows:
“I. That you, G. T. AHEMBE, ESQ, Legal Practitioner, of Kender Chambers, 30, J. S. Tarka way Gboko, your service was retained by Dr. Terlumun Numbeve sometime ago for an action for the enforcement of his fundamental right, a legal service you gave and on the strength of it, you were paid the sum of N5m awarded as damages on behalf of Dr. Terlumun Numbeve but you refused to remit to your client and by so doing, you failed to maintain the high standard of professional conduct expected of a Legal Practitioner all contrary to Rules 1,14(4) and 55 of the Legal Practitioner Act now Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2007.
- That you G. T.AHEMBE ESQ, Legal Practitioner of Kender Chambers, 30, J. S. Tarka way Gboko, Benue State your service was retained by Dr. Terlumun Numbeve where you gave a legal representation and received the sum of N5m on behalf of your client but you remitted only N500,000 defrauding your client of the sum of N4.5m, an act contrary to Rules I, 14(4), J6(c) and 55 of the Legal B Practitioner Act now Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2007.
- That you G. T. AHEMBE ESQ, legal practitioner, of Kender Chambers, 30, J. S. Tarka Way Gboko, Benue State, your service was retained by Dr. Terlumun Cumbeve where you gave a Legal representation and received the sum of N5m on behalf of your client but you remitted only N500,000 and failed or neglected to account for the said balance of N4.5m despite repeated demand by your client, thereby converting the balance of your client’s money to your personal use, you conducted yourself in an infamous professional manner in breach of Rule 14(4),16(1) and 55 of the Legal Practitioner Act now Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2007.”
The evidence led
In the ensuing trial of the complaint, the complainant, the Nigerian Bar Association, fielded two witnesses. The PW I, one Zibai Blessed Katung is an Assistant Secretary at the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee, whose schedule of duties included the receipt of exhibits P I-P63. The exhibits were tendered through him and he gave evidence on the documents.
To show the painstaking nature of the investigation of this matter, exhibits P59 – P63 were specifically tendered and referred
- The exhibits represented the proceedings of the investigation before the Nigerian Bar Association, Gboko branch Disciplinary
Committee. It shows clearly the full participation of PW2 and the respondent at the investigation of the matter. This witness was not cross-examined. The PW2 was the petitioner, Dr. Terlumun Numbeve. The summary of his testimony was that he knew the respondent initially as a patient at his clinic in Gboko. Subsequently, however, when he was unlawfully detained by the police, he instructed the respondent to institute an action on his behalf before the High Court of Justice,Gboko. It was his evidence that he was charged the initial sum of N30,000 as professional fees by the respondent, which he claimed he paid. He further stated that, at various times. he paid some other monies to the respondent upon demand.
It was his case that he never had an agreement with the respondent to take any part of the amount recovered and that the
respondent asked him for his bank account number vide text, which he obliged, The respondent paid only N500,000 into his account out of the total sum of N5m recovered on his behalf, about 4th January, 2011.
According to him, he then contacted a government lawyer by name Mrs. Tsuma, who in turn advised him to complain to the Nigerian Bar Association. When he could not make any headway with the respondent to pay the balance of his money to him, he accordingly lodged the complaint, vide exhibits P53 – P54.
The cross-examination of this witness by the respondent was a fiasco because most of the answers elicited during cross-examination went to confirm further his story about having no agreement whatsoever with the respondent on the latter’s claim of N4.5m as professional fees. With the evidence of this witness, the complainant closed its case.
The respondent elected to file a 33-paragraph statement on oath which he adopted as his evidence. It was his evidence, confirming substantially the story of PW2, that a relationship of solicitor and client existed between them and that he succeeded in getting judgment for PW2 in suit No. G HC/89/2008: Dr Ter Numbeve Vs Commissioner of Police, Benue Stare & Anor, before the Gboko High Court for the sum of N5m sometime in 2009.
He further claimed, vide paragraph 12 of his written statement on oath, that he paid over N500,000 out of this money to the bank account of PW2 on the understanding that, to quote him in the said paragraph, “ … that we would discuss when he shall have collected the bill and settled same.” He also stated, in paragraph 13, that it was after he had paid N500,000 that he prepared his bill of charges. It was part of his evidence that the PW2 never complained about the bill of charges. He then went into a long history of what he claimed to have done to be able to reap the fruit of the judgment he obtained in favour of PW2. He denied receipt of the sum of N30,000 or any sum at all from the PW2.
The respondent then went into another long but quite unhelpful story of the happenings before the Disciplinary Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association, Gboko branch. To underscore this part of his evidence, he said, in part of paragraph 37 of his written statement on oath as follows:
“That the bill of charges I gave to the petitioner is not even enough to fully satisfy payment to me for the services rendered in the case having regard to the efforts I put in the case and the risk I suffered as a result of the representations I made therein …. “
However, when cross-examined, he recapitulated on most of the assertions he made in his evidence-in-chief. The respondent, vide his address dated 15th June, 2013 but filed on 15th July, 2013, formulated two issues as follows:
“1.Whether or not the prosecution has proved its case against me before this honourable committee.
2.Whether or not the NBA local branch was right to have made a different case for PW2 against me by dwelling on the issue of quantum of the bill of professional fees charged for legal services rendered for determination by this honourable committee.”
One must be quick to point out that issue number two formulated above, which was directed against the investigation panel of the NBA, Gboko branch, and the submissions made thereon in substantial part of the address, are at best an exercise in futility, since our jurisdiction does not extend to a review of the work of the NBA Investigation Panel.
In a nutshell, the respondent submitted that the complainant has not succeeded in proving its case against him. He further submitted that PW2, who claimed to have paid him the sum of N30,000 as professional fees, had the legal burden to prove his assertion. With respect to the respondent, he totally missed the target because the complaint against him is not about the N30,000 allegedly paid to him by PW2.
He also submitted, even though without any legal foundation whatsoever, that exhibit P5, the findings of the investigation panel of the NBA, Gboko branch, was never served on him. All in all, he submitted strenuously, that he was entitled to the N4.5m he withheld from the N5m awarded to the PW2 and that what he did found comfort in section 52 of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2007.
He filed a reply address to the complainant’s address but it will be unprofitable to start to dwell on the reply because it was a virtual re-argument of the submissions in his main address. He cited many authorities, especially in admission against interest by a party in a proceeding.
The complainant also filed its written address in which two issues were formulated as follows:
“The first issue for determination is whether the respondent justified his retention of the sum of N4.5m out of the judgment sum of 5,000,000 as his legal fees for conducting suit number GHC/89/2008: Dr. Terluniun Numbeve v. Commissioner of Police, Benuestate & Another.
The second issue for determination is whether the respondent misconducted himself infamously by unilaterally retaining as his professional fee the sum of N4.5m out of a total judgment sum of N5,000,000 awarded the petitioner in suit number GHC/89/2008: Dr. Terlumun Numbeve v. Commissioner of Police, Benue State & Another.
Essentially, the submissions of the complainant was that the conduct of the respondent was contrary to the provisions of the Rules of Professional Ethics of the Bar and that in particular, there were breaches committed of Rules 18(2) and 23(2) of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2007.
It was further submitted that the respondent had no legal basis whatsoever to have withheld and retained N4.5m out of the total sum of N5,000,000 claimed for the PW2. Like the respondent, various authorities were cited by the complainant and it was finally submitted that they have proved the complaint against the respondent.
Decision
From the totality of this case, the real issue that calls for our determination is whether, having regard to the facts and circumstances of this matter, the complainant has succeeded in proving that the respondent, by holding onto the sum of N4.5m from the total sum of N5m awarded in favour of the PW2 in suit No: GHC/89/2008: Dr. Terlumun Numbeve v. Commissioner of Police, Benue State & Another, has committed professional misconduct in a professional sense for which he is liable to be proceeded against in accordance with the provisions of the Legal Practitioners’ Act.
We have, in the earlier part of this direction, copiously set out the facts of the matter and the cases put forward by the complainant and the respondent. It is our finding, from the totality of the facts, that, while the case of the complainant, as presented, was straight forward, cogent, believable and solid, the case put forward by the respondent is woolly, uncoordinated, lacking in cogency, full of gaps, a bundle of afterthoughts and unbelievable.
One would wonder why the respondent, who felt that he was entitled to keep 90 per cent of monetary damages awarded to his client, would now turn around at the trial to say that his maximum claim should not have been more than N3.5m. One would make bold to say that, even if, and this is not conceded, the PW2 never paid anything as professional fees when the matter started, would the respondent, by any parameter, be entitled to 90 per cent of damages awarded in favour of his client?
What is more? Even on the showing of the respondent, his bill of charges, exhibit P50, only surfaced after the PW2 had written his petition to the NBA, Gboko branch, against the respondent for unilaterally sitting on the PW2’s money.
We find as a fact that wherever the case of the respondent contradicts that of the complainant, we prefer the case of the latter. We observed the demeanour of the respondent when he was giving his evidence and he appeared to be a cunning, shifty and unabashed liar.
He was a man driven by rapacity and excessive greed. He suffers no compulsion in betraying the trust reposed in him and saw nothing wrong in appropriating other people’s property, as long as it serves his own purpose. He belongs to the class of practitioners who, in sane climes, should not even be a solicitor’s clerk because the sacred threshold of fiduciary relationship that exists between a lawyer and his client means nothing to him. It is indeed a sad commentary that the respondent meandered his way into the noble profession of law.
This case bears a very striking and uncanny similarity with the case of Ndukwe v. LPDC (2007) 5 NWLR (Pt. 1026) I at 47 – 48, paras. G-E where Mahmud Mohammed JSC, dealing with another seedy erstwhile legal practitioner, had the following to say:
“In the course of the proceedings before the 1st respondent, the appellant, a legal practitioner on trial for unprofessional conduct, admitted in no uncertain terms that he collected some money due to his client from the execution of a judgment in favour of the client but failed to pay that sum of money to the client in spite of repeated demands up to the time of his trial by the 1st respondent. These clear admissions are contained on page 24 of the record of this appeal where the appellant said: ‘All I want to add is that the amount so far paid to me by the Registrar is less than N25,000. There is still a balance of N5,000 unpaid till today … I paid N1,000 to the petitioner’s son. At a point when the petitioner decided to debrief me, I explained all the steps I had taken to her. She said that she was not going to pursue the matter any further. I still have N18,000 in my hand which I have not paid to her … I confirm that I still have N18,000 of the petitioners money in my possession. Even if I take 25 per cent of the amount as the agreed lega] fee to be paid to me, I am still owing the petitioner some money. I made the same disclosure to the A-G of Abia State. I do not have the whole money to be refunded to the petitioner here now.’
“Thus from the story told by the appellant himself regarding the prevailing situation in the course of his trial before the 1st respondent on the complaint against him, it is not at all in dispute that he unjustifiably retained his client’s money and failed to deliver it to her notwithstanding her filing a petition against him. Certainly where a legal practitioner, without any justification, held on to his client’s money, all right-thinking members of the legal profession must view this misconduct with great concern not only for the protection of the public particularly clients like the 2nd respondent but also for the protection and preserving the good name of the legal profession.”
The echoes from the above dictum of His Lordship should be ringing deeply in the ears of the respondent and his ilk. As to what a legal practitioner should be, we have recourse to the immortal words of Musdapher JSC, as he then was, in Okike v. LPDC (2005) 15 NWLR (Pt. 949) 471 at 5 10, para. B-C where His Lordship said:
“Now, it is, I think, a fair characterisation of a legal practitioner’s responsibilities in this country, that he stands as a ‘shield’ in defence of right and to ward off wrong. In a profession charged with such responsibilities, there must be exacted those qualities of truth speaking of a high sense of honour, of the strictest observance of fiduciary responsibility. See in Re Edewor (1968) I All NLR 226.”
We wish to adopt our words in the unreported decision of this committee in the case of NBA v. C. C. Monyei delivered on the 10th day of May, 2013 in case No. BB/LPDCI091, (20 J 3) 18 NWLR (Pt. 1386) 454, p. 468 paras. E-G where we stated as follows:
“The point must be made that the days of professional impunity by legal practitioners of the ilk of the respondent are now limited. In the recent past, legal practitioners were adored and held in awe by members of the Nigerian society but alas, acts like the one perpetuated by the respondent in this matter have done sizeable erosion to the well being of the legal profession in Nigeria.
Any legal practitioner that wants to remain in the fold of men of noble learning must abide by the simple rules of professional ethics and be standard bearers of all that is good, noble and excellent. Those that cannot keep within the rules of professional ethics should voluntarily go and look for other past times to engage in.” In addition to the above, no words would be too strong to deprecate, in no uncertain terms, the avarice of the respondent herein. He represents a caricature of a sinking man who claws at any straw, no matter how fragile. Not even the intervention of his church in this matter could sway nor persuade him to tread the path of rectitude.
Before we close our discussion in this matter, we cannot resist the temptation to refer to a case that bears similar characteristics with this present unfortunate matter. It is the case of Anamelechi lteogu Esq. v. LPDC (2009) II NWLR (Pt. 1171) 614 at 635 – 636 paras. E – A, where Onnoghen JSC, reading the leading judgment, stated as follows:
“The conduct of the appellant in this matter leaves much to be desired. It is, to put it mildly, rather unfortunate. Here is a legal practitioner in whom much trust was reposed but who failed to Iive up to expectation.
Granted that appellant was unaware of the existence and claim of the petitioner in respect of the compensation, which is however not borne out of the evidence on record, why, for God’s sake, did the appellant not take steps to meet the petitioner even half way upon becoming aware of the petitioner’s unsatisfied claims to compensation? What would it have caused the appellant to have given his law practice a human face? Nothing; but his failure to do so has proven to be very expensive indeed. Is it not said that penny wise, pound-foolish?
From the evidence on record, it is very clear that from the onset, the appellant had no intention of paying the claims of the petitioner despite the numerous petitions written by the petitioner in search of justice, including a report to the police. If after the appellant had become aware of the claims of the petitioner, he/appellant had taken steps to pay the petitioner, the petitioner would not have reported the matter to the NBA for investigation and redress. It is on record that when the petitioner reported the matter to the police, the Ibaka community duly identified the petitioner as one of them yet the appellant would not be moved. How true that those that the gods want destroyed they first make mad!”
The above words of His Lordship are tailor-made for the respondent herein. We say no more!
Direction
Considering the totality of all we have stated and enumerated above, this committee has come to the following conclusion and directs as follows:
- That the three counts in the complaint is found proved against the respondent, G.T. Ahembe Esq. b. That you, G. T. Ahembe Esq, is found guilty of infamous conduct in a professional sense, by holding over and refusing to pay to Dr. Terlumun Numbeve, who was your client, the sum of N4.5m you recovered on his behalf in suit No: GHC/89/2008: Dr. Terlumun Numbeve v. Commissioner (4 Police, Benue State & Anor , contrary to Rules 1, 23 and SS( I) of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2007.
- That you, G. T. Ahembe Esq, shall be proceeded against under and by virtue of section 12( I )(a) of the Legal Practitioners’ Act as amended.
- The Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court is hereby directed to strike out the name of G. T. Ahembe Esq. from the Roll of Legal Practitioners, forthwith.
- That you, G. T. Ahembe Esq, shall forthwith pay over to the Chairman of the NBA Gboko branch, the sum of N4.5m, which the Chairman shall in turn pay over to Dr. Terlumun’Numbeve.
- We order that the notice of this direction shall be brought immediately to the attention of the respondent by service on him at Federal Housing Estate, Gboko, Benue State and also by publication in any edition of the Punch Newspaper as well as in the Federal Government Gazette, as required by law.
- Further, copies of this Direction must be served on the President of the NBA, Chairman of the General Council of the Bar and all branches of the NBA and the National Executive Committee of the NBA.
- Further still, copies of this direction shall be served on the President of the Court of Appeal, all Chief Judges, Attorney-General of the Federation and the states, the Inspector-General of Police and the Commissioners of Police in Benue and Nassarawa States.
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