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The Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) will on Wednesday, May 7, resume hearing on the petition written against a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Chukwuma Ekomaru, by a former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Austin Nwachukwu.
The former lawmaker had alleged that Ekomaru conducted himself unethically in the manner he handled the brief he gave him.
Ekomaru however, denied any wrong doing and asked the committee to dismiss the petition.
Nwachukwu alleged that he gave Ekomaru N5million fee to handle his case but said he abandoned the case.
The parties would adopt their arguments when the committee resumes sitting on Wednesday.
A disciplinary committee set up by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Abuja branch had after its investigation of the allegations against Ekomaru, held that he had a case to answer and then sent his case to the LPDC for determination.
Nwachukwu had in the petition dated October 25, 2012 said sometime in 2010, he instructed the lawyer to institute a suit on his behalf against Arik Air for negligence.
The petitioner said: "He charged me the sum of N5 million only as his professional fee for instituting and prosecuting the suit to its logical conclusion. After taking my money, he abandoned my case."
He also accused Ekomaru of threatening to frustrate a pre-election matter he gave him to handle.
Nwachukwu stated that "Sometime in 2011, I contested the PDP primary elections for the Ehime Mbano/Ihite Uboma/Obowo (also known as Okigwe South) Federal Constituency. Though I scored the highest number of votes cast at the said primary election, the PDP forwarded the name of another candidate, who came third to the INEC as its candidate for the general election.
"Being aggrieved by the said injustice meted out to me, I consulted my lawyer, Chukwuma Ekomaru, to institute a pre-election suit on my behalf against the PDP and others. He interviewed me and requested me to submit all my relevant documents pertaining the primary elections. I did so and after studying and perusing the documents, he told me that I have a good case. He even said that the PDP and the candidate whose name they forwarded to the INEC were a bunch of dishonourable persons.
"Ekomaru photocopied all my documents with regards to this case that he was going to use them to file the suit against my opponent and the PDP, till today the said documents are still with him. After seeing him in the Federal High Court Owerri where he appeared for my opponent, it occurred to me that he must have used my document to build up a case against me. By doing so, he breached the trust and confidence of client-lawyer relationship," he declared.
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