The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Okezie Kalu, has urged the Council of Legal Education (CLE) to dismiss a petition seeking the withdrawal of his qualifying certificate as a lawyer, describing the request as “fundamentally deficient in law.”
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The position was conveyed in a letter dated April 28, 2026, filed by his legal team and signed by Chukwuebuka Okeke. The response followed a petition submitted on March 16, 2026, by John Aikpokpo Martins, who called for the cancellation of Kalu’s certificate on the grounds that his attendance at the Nigerian Law School coincided with his participation in the National Youth Service Corps.
In his defence, Kalu argued that the CLE, as a statutory body established under the Legal Education (Consolidation, etc.) Act can only exercise powers expressly granted by law.
He maintained that there is no provision empowering the council to retrospectively withdraw or cancel a qualifying certificate, stressing that its disciplinary authority is limited in scope.
According to him, such powers are “implied and necessarily narrow” and can only be invoked in cases involving clear criminal misconduct.
Kalu further urged the council to reject the petition on three grounds: the absence of any vitiating criminal conduct, the declaration’s unsworn nature, and the lack of any legal prohibition on concurrent participation in the National Youth Service Corps and the Nigerian Law School.
“The council cannot revoke a lawfully issued certificate unless a clear case of criminal misconduct is established. The petition does not meet that threshold,” he stated.
“The declaration relied upon by the petitioner was unsworn and carries no force of law.” Formal criminal proceedings are a precondition for the Council to act on grounds of criminal conduct.
“The petition’s claim that concurrent participation in the NYSC scheme and the Nigerian Law School programme is unlawful has “no legal consequence,” as no statute, regulation, or binding institutional rule prohibits it.
“The most fundamental deficiency of the Petition is that even if the Declaration were taken at face value, the underlying conduct it purports to preclude, namely, concurrent participation in the NYSC scheme and the NLS programme, was not prohibited by the LEA or the regulations in force at the material time.
“Neither the LEA nor the LPA contain any provision that disqualifies a person from undertaking or completing the Nigerian Law School programme by reason of simultaneous NYSC service.
“Critically, a review of the Nigerian Law School Student Handbook for the 2010/2011 Academic Session reveals that there is no express prohibition on a student concurrently serving in the NYSC during that academic year. The Petitioner has annexed no official regulation, subsidiary legislation, or circular issued by the Council that explicitly bars contemporaneous NLS studies and NYSC service.
“It is pertinent to note that a withdrawal or cancellation of the Respondent’s qualifying certificate will be a penal outcome, which effectively means that the Council would be acting in a quasi-judicial capacity. Consequently, arising from the constitutional precepts entrenched in section 36(8) and 36(12) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as altered), the Council cannot punish the Respondent by withdrawing his qualifying certificate if there is no written law which proscribes contemporaneous NLS studies and NYSC service, and also prescribes the punishment for the same”, he said..
Kalu prayed that CLE dismiss the petition, as the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) had done for lack of merit.
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