The suspended senator for Kogi Central, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has filed a petition to disbar the chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petition, Senator Nedamwem Imasuen, and have his name removed as a lawyer.
In the petition she filed before the Legal Practitioners
Disciplinary Committee (LPDC), the Kogi lawmaker alleged that the New York
Supreme Court, Appellate Division, had on May 10, 2010, indicted and debarred
the Senate Ethics committee chairman “for fraud, misappropriation of client’s
funds and failure to respond to disciplinary authorities”.
To back her allegation, the petitioner tendered to the LPDC
a copy of the Justia New York Case Law 2010, with the title ‘Matter of Imasuen.
She equally pledged to “lead further evidence from official
records of the respondent’s disbarment at the trial of this case”.
Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan told the LPDC that the respondent’s
disbarment by the US court followed a complaint that was lodged against him by
one Daphne Slyfield, a client who paid substantial legal fees to him but was
abandoned without legal recourse.
“The court found that the respondent had violated multiple
professional rules, resulting in the permanent revocation of his legal licence
in the US.
“That following the respondent’s disbarment, he relocated to
Nigeria, continued to present himself as a legal practitioner and pursued a
career in politics, eventually securing a seat in the National Assembly as the
senator representing Edo South Senatorial District.
“Despite this disbarment, which was hinged on unethical
conduct, the respondent failed to disclose this sanction, both in the legal
profession and political space, as a senator, and was eventually made the
chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions, a
position requiring unimpeachable integrity.
“That the Respondent did not remotely disclose his
disbarment either in his Form EC9 – particulars of personal information
submitted to INEC on oath at the time of aspiring for public office,” the
petitioner added.
Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan said her petition to the LPDC arose
from a sequence of events that call into question the integrity and ethical
standing of the respondent.
She alleged that Senator Imasuen had, in an attempt to
expose the judiciary to odium and disrepute, publicly spurned an interim order
the Federal High Court in Abuja made on March 4, which stopped his committee
from proceeding with a disciplinary action that was initiated against her.
She maintained that the respondent, who was duly served with
the interim order, acted in contempt of court by slamming her with a six-month
suspension.
Details later.
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