Resolving the Seeming Conflicting Decisions of the Supreme Court: Where Lies Appeal from the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee?

Abstract

For over two decades, there have been controversies regarding where appeals from the directions of the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee should go to – whether to the Appeals Committee of the Body of Benchers or to the Supreme Court. Notable Supreme Court judgments at different times gave different verdicts in cases such as Okike v LPDC, Akintokun v LPDC, NBA v Aladejobi and Nwalutu v NBA. Consequently, there are agitations that have question the seeming contradictions from the apex Court. This paper therefore analyses the circumstances and decisions of each of these cases from the Supreme Court as well as the applicable laws to ascertain the reasons behind the seeming contradictions. This is with the intention of explaining the true position of the law and to eliminate the uncertainties surrounding the verdicts of the Supreme Court by presenting a chronological explanation of the circumstances that informed the seeming contradictions of the Supreme Court in its holdings. The paper holds that the judgments were correctly in consonance with what the applicable laws were perceived to be at the time of judgment except for the Okike case which was based on an assumption of the applicable law.