A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Norris Quakers, has expressed consternation at the allegation of professional misconduct and malpractice levelled against him by a lawyer, Chief Johnson Anumudu.

Quakers, while describing the allegations as spurious, stated that since he heard of the petition wherein the allegations were contained, he had received neither a copy of the said petition nor any form of invitation from any constituted enquiry panel including the National Judicial Council.

Besides, the SAN said he wondered why a petition against him would be addressed to the NJC when he is not a judicial officer.

“It makes no sense for a man who has no title, no interest in the property to have written a petition to the NJC; I am not a judicial officer, why would he do a petition to the NJC? It is an error,” Quakers said.

The complaint of the petitioner stemmed from the transfer of his client’s (Bright Motors) suit tagged LD/1341/2012 filed before Justice Oyekan Abdullahi to Justice L.A.F. Oluyemi both of the Lagos State High Court at the instance of Quakers.

According to the petitioner, the reason given for the transfer was to enable the matter to be consolidated with Quakers’ suit numbered M/1171/2012 before Justice Oluyemi.

The two suits, it was learnt, centred on a property located at Adeola Odeku Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, belonging to an ex-Minister of Works, Senator Mohammed Daggash, to whom Quakers is a counsel.

Daggash’s suit, filed through Quakers and numbered M/1171/2012, had at its defendant, the Administrator of the Estate of Chief Francis Ijewere (late).

The suit was praying the court to order Ijewere to relinquish the property at Adeola Odeku to Daggash, since Ijewere’s term of sub-lease agreement on the property had expired on September 2, 2012.

On the other hand, Anumudu’s suit marked LD/1341/2012 had as its first and second defendants, the Administrator of the Estate of Daggash and the Administrator of the Estate of Ijewere respectively.

Anumudu’s client, Bright Motors, was praying the court to restrain Daggash from taking possession of the property since, according to him, he had an existing agreement with the sub-lessor of that property, Ijewere.

The allegation of Anumudu, however, was that after the transfer of his own suit from Justice Abdullahi, it was never consolidated with Quakers’ suit before Justice Oluyemi, but rather the two separate suits were fixed for hearing without serving on him any hearing notice.

According to Anumudu, on the hearing date, May 20, 2013, while he was absent in court, Justice Oluyemi had granted Daggash’s prayer to take over his property from late Ijewere, and to eject all of Ijewere’s tenants on the property, including Bright Motors, to whom Anumudu is the alter ego.

And having granted the prayer, the court had also upheld Quakers’ prayer to strike out Anumudu’s suit, which was argued to have become merely academic in the circumstance.

This was the backdrop against which Anumudu had accused Quakers of malpractice.

Reacting to the allegation of non-service of hearing notice, Quakers claimed that it was Anumudu, who deliberately distanced himself from court after he had been informed through a letter from the chambers of the Chief Judge of Lagos State that the matter had been taken before Justice Oluyemi and that he should go there to vent all his grievances.

He described as totally false and unthinkable the allegation that he instructed court registrars not to serve Anumudu with hearing notice.

Regarding non-consolidation of the two suits, Quakers’ junior, who was in charge of the matter, Mr. Smart Iwu, claimed that the need to consolidate the matter was overtaken by event.

Iwu referred to a letter dated March 4, 2013 signed by Mr. Fred Ijewere, the Interim Administrator of the Estate of late Ijewere’s Estate. The letter titled “Affidavit of surrender of possession of claimant’s property situate at Plot 80, Victoria Island, Lagos (Now known as Plot 9A and 9B Adeola Odeku, Victoria Island, Lagos)” was a response to the service of originating summons on Ijewere to the effect that he should appear in court to state why he was not obliged to relinquish the property to Daggash.

But in the said letter, Ijewere had said he was surprised to have been served by Daggash with court summons after he had already walked away from Daggash’s property since the expiration of his term of sub-lease agreement on September 2, 2012.

Ijewere had stated that he was longer in possession of the property and he did not think that Daggash needed to resort to legal action to repossess a property that he (Ijewere) had already surrendered to him.

The letter had stated partly, “We long left the place and expected your client to have gone to take their property automatically without recourse to us.

“The two sub-tenants in No. 9A and 9B have been aware of this and that is why we did not collect any new rents from them commencing from 2012.”

Quakers maintained that he could not be held responsible for Anumudu’s absence in court on May 20, 2013 when Justice Oluyemi gave Daggash the order to take over his property and eject all of Ijewere’s tenants, including Anumudu’s client, Bright Motors.

The SAN also explained that the order of Justice Oluyemi as regards repossession was carried out by the court bailiff with the aid of policemen acting under the instruction of the Commissioner of Police as against the use of thugs as alleged by the petitioner.

“A judgment of the court is executed by the court bailiff with the assistance of the Police, no policeman would go to anywhere except there is an order of court and after they have done verification before the decision is carried out. It is the court that carried out the execution,” Quakers stated.

And finally on the allegation of wanton destruction of properties belonging to Anumudu’s client, Quakers said if it was true, he wondered why Anumudu would be only one complaining since there were other tenants equally ejected from the property just like Anumudu.

According to Quakers, Anumudu’s complaints were of no moment since whatever right he had on the property lapsed the moment his landlord, Ijewere, had surrendered possession to the rightful owner, Daggash.

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