Imagine a defence team made up of 99 lawyers, including 32 Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN). This curiously large team of defenders was announced at a Lagos High Court in Igbosere on February 16.
The defendant, Lagos lawyer Ricky Tarfa (SAN), is accused of willfully obstructing two officers of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Moses Awolusi and Sanusi Mohammed, from arresting Gnanhoue Sourou and Nazaire Odeste, suspected to have committed economic and financial crimes. Also, he is alleged to have engaged in improper communication with Justice M. Yunusa of the Federal High Court, Lagos, while the case between the EFCC and two others was pending before the judge.
But that didn’t make the size of the defence team understandable. The same number of Senior Advocates had reportedly lined up behind Tarfa to file a suit at the Federal High Court in Lagos, demanding N2.5 billion damages for Tarfa’s alleged unlawful arrest and detention. It looked like a dramatic show of solidarity.
It wasn’t less dramatic when the size of the defence team attracted attention at Justice Aishat Opesanwo’s court at the commencement of proceedings in a counter case filed by the EFCC.
Was the intention to intimidate the judge with an army of lawyers, senior and not-so-senior? The trial judge reportedly “bemoaned the number of counsel who were in court for the defendant. She noted that there was no need for such magnitude of support as it amounts to harassment and intimidation of the court.”
The judge’s observation is thought-provoking. It remains to be seen whether the sheer number of defenders would work in the defendant’s favour. The force of size is not the force of justice.
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Shameless lawyers working hands in gloves with the corrupt in our society and I bet they have gotten the Liberian civil war stories where lawyers were begging for food in refugee camps.