Posted by By Juliana Francis and Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye on
The temple of justice was desecrated in Lagos when a lawyer stole two phone handsets inside a court room.
The temple of justice was desecrated in Lagos when a lawyer stole two phone handsets inside a court room. The 31-year-old lawyer (names withheld), who said he had graduated from the Lagos State University (LASU), blamed the alleged act of stealing on "external forces." And the police have handed him over to the Nigerian Bar Association(NBA) instead of charging him to court.
Speaking with Daily Sun, as his eyeballs were filled with tears, the lawyer (MBA) said: 'In law, black magic is unknown, but it might have been so. I don't know whether there are external forces behind what happened to me. Since my father died, there had been squabbles over the sharing of his properties."
The lawyer allegedly walked into an almost deserted courtroom on May 13 and saw two tired men sleeping. Besides one of the men were two handsets, a walkie-talkie and a pair of glasses. The handsets were said to have disappeared as he left the room.
As the lawyer was leaving the court room, the sleeping officer was said to have woken up, raised alarm and began to chase the suspect, who allegedly mounted a commercial motorbike in a bid to escape. But he was caught before the bike could move. The phone handsets were found on him.
Daily Sun learnt that the Commissioner of Police had ordered that the lawyer be handed over to the NBA for disciplinary action.
A top police boss said: "We would not want to disgrace the legal profession. The CP has also said that he would not want the police to take the suspect to court. The police and the judiciary have had a nice relationship and we do not want anything to jeopardise it."
The police would not accept the lawyer's claim that he did not mean to steal the phones as officers argued that he had rushed past the security post with the handsets "and had been caught with them while he was on the motorbike."
The suspect told Daily Sun that he had never been involved in crime. He said: "For God's sake, it could happen to anybody. What really matters is whether I had been known for stealing before. I can't believe this is happening to me."
NBA officials were at the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) Panti, Yaba last Thursday to see the detained lawyer.