A front line civil society organization in Nigeria, Empowerment for Unemployment Youth Initiative (EUYI) has petitioned the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to investigate and invoke disciplinarian measures on a group of lawyers believed to have be paid to blackmail and taint the reputation of Engr. Mele Kyari.
Mele Kyari, the immediate past Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPLC) is alleged to have been involved in corrupt undertakings during his tenure in office by Guardians of Democracy and the Rule of Law, a rights group purportedly run by lawyers who called for his prosecution even before an investigation into their allegations.
Amb. Solomon Adodo, the Pioneer National Coordinator, alongside Comrade Danesi Momoh and Igwe Ude-umanta, National Coordinator and Secretary of EUYI respectively while addressing a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, demanded for a thorough investigation and disciplinary actions against lawyers believed to have been sponsored to blackmail Engr. Mele Kyari.
“Few days ago and precisely on Tuesday, May 6th 2025, we addressed the media to expose the shenanigans of some hired hands with clear evidence that the recent protests against Engr. Mele Kyari, former Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPLC is a sponsored and heavily financed campaign of calumny by persons who are disgruntled or out for a blackmail. There is nothing in those protests other than multidimensional mischief.
“The retraction and apology tendered by one Comrade Kabir Matazu of Concerned Citizens Against Corruption (CCAC) who confessed to have been misled by the a member of the House of Representatives dealt a blow on this syndicate of tactical defamation and blackmail. His confession and apology, purely based on moral principles exposed the motive behind these staged protests.
“Shamefully however, the financiers of this evil project refused to rest. In an attempt therefore to pollute the noble legal profession as they have done to the civil society, they procured a few lawyers who dressed other hustling citizens in suits to go to different institutions of government to impersonate lawyers and the legal profession in the name of protests and submission of petitions.
“The whole idea about this repulsive ingenuity is to leverage on the high regards that the legal profession enjoys in order to create the impression that there is a serious matter for which members of the Nigerian Bar are interested and/or trying to expose. But in reality, there are no more than 5 terrible lawyers behind the entire noise. In fact, we still suspect that they are not even up to that number”, the press text noted.
EUYI consequently, filed a formal complaint to the NBA, detailing the atrocities of suspected lawyers and how the legal profession is being trampled upon by miscreants, eliciting the need for a prompt investigation into their activities based on disturbing irregularities.
“Chief amongst them is the fact that the so-called Guardians of Democracy and the Rule of Law appears to have been created solely to wage a campaign of calumny against Mele Kyari. Secondly, it has an amorphous leadership and operation in which different persons are reported in the media to be their leaders and spokespersons at different times.
“In some of the protests, they have called for the trial of Mele Kyari, before turning around to say that he should be investigated. We are therefore worried that “a group of lawyers” could call for the trial of a person who is yet to be investigated, the text added.
Consequently, the group requested the NBA “to launch an investigation and ascertain whether Barr. Aminu Bello, Rotimi Adeyemo, Benjamin Theophilus, Emmanuel Agada and Asika Raymond, who are persons that variously claimed to be leaders of the group have been called to the Nigerian Bar with valid practicing licenses.
“We suspect that some of them may not even be lawyers. And if they are, we contend that their activities are unethical and should be scrutinized.
“Having determined their status as lawyers, we urge the NBA to compel them to provide details of the 500 lawyers whom they claim are pursuing the probe or trial matter against Kyari. It is opprobrious to dress persons in lawyers attires to impersonate the legal profession.
“An investigation into the status and operations of the so called Guardians of Democracy and Rule of Law should also be conducted by the NBA to know whether they are a registered entity run by lawyers as claimed, the added.
The group concluded by expressing confidence in the ability of the NBA to uphold the legal profession, noting that, “their findings may provide the appropriate sanitizer that we need in the civil society space and it is our hope that at some point in this matter, the security agencies will step in to identify those who paraded as lawyers when they are not. We reiterate that there must a limit to chicanery and madness!”
