A man, who had allegedly posed as a lawyer, has been remanded in police custody and may be charged to 14 years imprisonment if found guilty. He was identified as Stanley Adjogbe.

Justice Chinwendu Nwogu gave the order for his remand, pending outcome of investigations into his case. This was due to the suspect’s failure to convince the court and Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Port Harcourt branch, that he was indeed a lawyer during a court appearance on Wednesday.

Ibikiri Otorubio had raised the alarm after he noticed the supposed senior lawyer was ignorant on common points of law.

Otorubo said, “Based on the petition we wrote to the Commissioner of Police, where we suspected he was fake was when the matter on a bounced cheque came up for the first time for a plea. He turned to me and asked ‘Counsel, what is the punishment of bounced cheque?’

“I was taken aback that as very senior counsel he claimed to be, he does not know the punishment for bounced cheque. I now told him, “ah, counsel you do not know? It is two years imprisonment.’

“He now turned to my client and said ‘do what I have said.’ so my client now had to write a petition to the Commissioner of Police, wrote to Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) who said he is not a lawyer who has been called to the bar.”

The Chairman, NBA Port Harcourt branch, Prince Onyekwere, said, “His name is not found in our database. Of course, every lawyer in Nigeria has an enrollment number and the Supreme Court keeps that list of lawyers and Supreme Court has written that they do not have his name.

“What we then did was plead with the court to allow us opportunity with him to produce his call to bar certificate so we will know both NBA and Supreme Court are mistaking and correct that mistake, but we doubt. It is quite unusual that NBA and Supreme Court will not have the name of the lawyer that was called to the bar in Nigeria.”

Since his last trial could not inform the court and NBA the law school attended by the suspect, he was remanded to preempt possible disappearance.