RECENT BILATERAL AGREEMENT PROPOSAL TO ALLOW BRITISH LAWYERS TO PRACTICE IN NIGERIA COULD NOT HAVE WORKED – EX-NBA AGUATA CHAIRMAN

Eche Nwaobasi

Onitsha

Bar. Clifford Iloegbune Okoye time chairman of NBA Aguata and NBA National NEC Member has stated that the recent bilateral agreement proposal that the Federal Government wanted to have with the British Government allowing British Lawyers to practice in the country could not have worked as it could have amounted to enthroning illegality adding that the enabling law as regulated by Nigeria Legal Practitioners Act allows only those that pass BAR Part two examination in Nigeria, called to BAR and enrolled in the Supreme Court of Nigeria as Solicitors and Advocates of Supreme Court as well as being a member of Nigeria Bar Association to practice as lawyers in all Nigeria Courts.

Making this assertion while reacting to the proposal which the Federal government later denied, Okoye noted that these requirements are there and are Sacrosanct which cannot be changed unless there is a new law to abrogate it.

Said he, “When I heard about the so-called proposal titled; enhance trade and investment partnership, which the Federal Government tried to enter although they later denied such arrangement, I knew the matter was dead on arrival and will not be enforceable in Nigeria given the clearer provision of instant laws in the country regulating legal practice, the whole arrangement was a ruse and is null and void”.