Court fines Kanu Agabi's Law Firm N200,000 For Presenting Junior Lawyer Not Prepared for Defence.

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu has fined the Kanu Agabi Chambers who are counsels in a suit filed by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission EFCC for Apartment le Paradis, a hotel in which Nanle Dariye, son of a former Plateau State Governor, Joshua Dariye, is a director the sum of N200,000 for inefficiency.

On February 27, 2018 Nanle was arraigned along with Apartment le Paradis on a six-count charge of money laundering to the tune of N1.5 billion, to which he pleaded “not guilty”,

The matter was adjourned to April 10, 2019 for the second defendant to open its defence after one of its count of the charges, which directly affected Nanle, was struck out but it was held that the hotel had a case to answer in the money laundering charge, the court ruled on the 'No Case Submission' filed by the defence counsel.

At the resumed sitting, Agabi was absent in court, but sent in a junior lawyer who appealed for an adjournment, noting that she was just informed about the case and was not prepared to lead the defence. According to her, an agreement had been struck with the prosecution as regards the request for an adjournment.

To her shock, counsel for the EFCC, Ike Okonjo, refuted the claim of any such agreement, stressing that the prosecution had come prepared to continue with the case and was surprised at the position of the defence.

Justice Ojukwu expressed dismay at the lazy attitudes of some law firm and wondered how the defence would come after one month unprepared to continue with the case and worst off, sent a junior lawyer to come seek an adjournment. She ordered the defence lawyer to pay N200,000 as fine before the next trial date and adjourned the matter to May 13th and 15th 2019.