human rights, and corruption as well as the inability of the anti-corruption agencies
particularly EFCC to tackle corruption and most often exposing the poor practices
of anti-corruption officials.
The Plaintiff avers that he was counsel to a suspect who was charged for a criminal
offence of fraud at the Federal High Court Port-Harcourt Division. Being a law firm
that handles mostly civil matters, the Plaintiff decided to discontinue his
representation to which he filed an application to that effect on the 1st of August
2007. This application was granted by the court.
On the 16th of June 2009 while the Plaintiff was in his law firm, some agents of the
Defendant (EFCC officials) stormed into his office, ransacked and took away
documents, as well as the Plaintiff to their office where he was detained for two days
from the 16th-18th June 2009 on the grounds that the accused person he ceased to
represent sometime in 2007 had jumped bail and that the Plaintiff must produce the
accused.
The Plaintiff avers that while in detention, the agents of the Defendants forced him
to enter an undertaking to produce the accused on a particular day and also seized
his law school certificates as conditions for his release. Not only that, the Defendants
agents asked the junior lawyer from the Plaintiffs law firm, who came to surety him
to deposit his Law School and call to bar certificates as a pre-condition for the release
of the Plaintiff.
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