…Urges Council of Legal Education To Dismiss Petition

Solicitors to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, PhD, CFR has asked the Council of Legal Education to dismiss a petition seeking the withdrawal of his qualifying certificate as a lawyer, describing it as “fundamentally deficient in law.”

In a letter dated April 28, 2026 and signed by Chukwuebuka S. Okeke of Olaniwun Ajayi LP Chambers, Kalu’s legal team responded to a petition filed on March 16, 2026, by John Aikpokpo Martins, Esq.

The petitioner had requested the cancellation of Kalu’s certificate on the grounds that his law school attendance and the participation in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) ran concurrently.

However in the response, the solicitors argued that the Council, as a statutory body created under the Legal Education (Consolidation, etc.) Act, can only exercise powers expressly conferred on it.

They stated that there is “no express statutory power conferred on the Council to ex post facto withdraw or cancel a qualifying certificate.”

According to the response, the Council’s disciplinary powers are “implied and necessarily narrow” and can only apply in cases of “manifest vitiating criminal conduct.”

“No such conduct has been established against Kalu”, the letter noted.

Essentially, Kalu’s legal team urged the Council to reject the petition on three major grounds of no vitiating criminal conduct; unsworn declaration and no legal bar on NYSC/NLS concurrency.

“The Council cannot revoke a lawfully issued certificate unless a clear case of criminal misconduct is proven. The petition does not meet that threshold.

“The declaration relied upon by the petitioner was unsworn and “carries no force of law.” Formal criminal proceedings are a precondition for the Council to act on grounds of criminal conduct.

“The petition’s claim that concurrent participation in the NYSC scheme and the Nigerian Law School programme is unlawful has “no legal consequence,” as no statute, regulation, or binding institutional rule prohibits it.”

The solicitors adduced that no known conventions at the material time prohibited concurrence of such programmes.

“The most fundamental deficiency of the Petition is that even if the Declaration were taken at face value, the underlying conduct it purports to preclude, namely, concurrent participation in the NYSC scheme and the NLS programme, was not prohibited by the LEA or the regulations in force at the material time.

“Neither the LEA nor the LPA contain any provision that disqualifies a person from undertaking or completing the Nigerian Law School programme by reason of simultaneous NYSC service.

“Critically, a review of the Nigerian Law School Student Handbook for the 2010/2011 Academic Session reveals that there is no express prohibition on a student concurrently serving in the NYSC during that academic year. The Petitioner has annexed no official regulation, subsidiary legislation, or circular issued by the Council that explicitly bars contemporaneous NLS studies and NYSC service.

“It is pertinent to note that a withdrawal or cancellation of the Respondent’s qualifying certificate will be a penal outcome, which effectively means that the Council would be acting in a quasi-judicial capacity.

Consequently, arising from the constitutional precepts entrenched in section 36(8) and 36(12) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as altered), the Council cannot punish the Respondent by withdrawing his qualifying certificate if there is no written law which proscribes contemporaneous NLS studies and NYSC service, and also prescribes the punishment for the same”, the letter read.

To this end, the Kalu’s legal team insisted that the petition lacks a “legally cognisable foundation”, urging the Council to decline jurisdiction over it.

“For the foregoing reasons, it is respectfully submitted that the Petition is fundamentally deficient in law and ought to be rejected without more,” the letter read.

Urging the Council of the Legal Education to dismiss the petition like the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) did for lacking in merit, the legal team said they remain available to provide any further information or clarification the Council may require. (Vanguard)

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