*“Thousands Of Lawyers Could Be Left Stranded Without A Right Of Appeal If LPDC Keeps Sitting” — Senior Lawyer Tells TheNigeriaLawyer
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A senior lawyer who attended the September 17, 2026 meeting of the Body of Benchers has told TheNigeriaLawyer that the legal profession is confronting what he described as a serious appellate “quagmire” over decisions of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, following the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that appeals can no longer go directly from the LPDC to the apex court.
Speaking to TheNigeriaLawyer after the meeting, the senior practitioner, who asked not to be named, said considerable discussion at the Body of Benchers centred on a question with immediate consequences for lawyers who have been struck off the Roll, suspended or otherwise sanctioned by the LPDC: where can they now appeal?
According to him, the difficulty arises from the Supreme Court’s June 26, 2026 majority decision in Ben Mene-Ejegi v. Nigerian Bar Association & Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, SC/481/2018, which held that Section 12(7) of the Legal Practitioners Act could not validly confer a direct right of appeal from the LPDC to the Supreme Court. The court held by five justices to two that its appellate jurisdiction under the Constitution could not be enlarged by ordinary legislation in that manner.
“The challenge we are having now is that, based on the Supreme Court decision in Mene-Ejegi v. NBA, appeal cannot lie to the Supreme Court directly from LPDC decisions,” the senior lawyer told TheNigeriaLawyer.
He said the immediate assumption might be that an aggrieved practitioner could instead approach the old Appeal Committee of the Body of Benchers. However, according to what members were told at Thursday’s meeting, that committee no longer exists under the current statutory framework.
“The expectation is that appeal will go to the Body of Benchers Appeal Committee,” he said. “But in our meeting yesterday, it was revealed to us by the chairman, indeed all those who were present, that that committee does not exist. It has been abolished.”
He continued: “The Body of Benchers Appeal Committee has been abolished by law. It does not exist, and it cannot be constituted under the present law.”
That concern is consistent with legal commentary following the Mene-Ejegi judgment, which notes that the former Appeal Committee route was removed by legislative changes in 1994 and was not revived by the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the direct route to the apex court. Commentators have consequently described the present position as an “appellate vacuum.”
The senior lawyer told TheNigeriaLawyer that the problem does not end there.
While Section 240 of the Constitution permits legislation to give the Court of Appeal appellate jurisdiction over tribunals, he said there is presently no operative statutory provision expressly creating an appeal from an LPDC direction to the Court of Appeal.
That distinction is important. The Supreme Court’s judgment identified the Court of Appeal as the constitutionally permissible intermediate appellate tier, but the current Legal Practitioners Act has not yet provided the statutory route necessary to take an LPDC appeal there.
The senior practitioner therefore described the position facing disciplined lawyers in stark terms.
“If LPDC gives a decision now, those who are affected are in some kind of legal quagmire,” he said.
“They can’t go to the Supreme Court. They can’t go to the Appeal Committee of the Body of Benchers because that committee does not exist.”
He said the issue generated extensive debate during the Body of Benchers meeting because the LPDC continues to determine complaints against lawyers, including matters in which practitioners may be suspended or have their names struck off the Roll.
“It took a lot of debate throughout yesterday as to what do we do, because there are many lawyers now whose names are struck off the Roll, lawyers who have been suspended, lawyers who are disciplined,” he said.
“They don’t have a clear avenue of appeal.”
The practitioner said this was the central reason the Body of Benchers constituted an Ad Hoc Committee to examine appeals arising from LPDC proceedings and the consequences of the Supreme Court judgment.
The official NBA account of the meeting confirms that NBA President Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, was appointed to the committee during her first Body of Benchers meeting in that capacity. The panel is chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice K.B. Akaahs, with former NBA President J.B. Daudu, SAN, Prof. Dakas C.J. Dakas, Chairman of the Law Reform Commission, and the NBA President involved in examining the issue.
According to the senior lawyer, however, constituting a committee does not by itself resolve the underlying statutory problem.
“What the Body of Benchers did was to constitute a committee to look into it and advise us on what to do,” he said.
“But the problem is this: even if the committee brings a recommendation, the law is not in our favour because we don’t know what to do.”
He argued that legislative intervention may ultimately be required.
“There has to be a new law that can create an appellate opportunity for those affected by LPDC decisions,” he said.
That view has also been advanced in legal analysis of the Supreme Court judgment. Section 240 of the Constitution expressly allows the National Assembly to prescribe appeals from tribunals to the Court of Appeal, meaning legislation could provide an LPDC-to-Court of Appeal route. The Mene-Ejegi judgment, however, held that Section 233 does not similarly permit legislation to create a direct appeal to the Supreme Court.
The senior lawyer said the issue has become even more pressing because of recent LPDC decisions involving prominent practitioners.
He cited the case of Chief Joe-Kyari Gadzama, SAN, who was suspended from practice for three years by the LPDC on July 29, 2026 and subsequently approached the Federal High Court in Abuja for judicial review.
On August 20, Justice Obiora-Atuegwu Egwuatu granted Gadzama leave to apply for an order of certiorari seeking to quash the LPDC Direction. The grant of leave did not quash the disciplinary decision or determine the merits of his challenge; it merely permitted him to proceed with his substantive judicial-review application.
The senior lawyer said Gadzama’s case illustrates the practical consequences of the appellate uncertainty.
“Just like Gadzama, he wanted to challenge the decision of the LPDC. There’s no Appeal Committee of the Body of Benchers, so he had to go to the Federal High Court,” he said.
But that route itself has generated a separate jurisdictional debate over whether, and to what extent, the Federal High Court may exercise supervisory jurisdiction over an LPDC Direction. Legal commentators have distinguished such judicial review from an appeal on the merits: certiorari ordinarily addresses questions such as jurisdiction, procedural legality and fair hearing rather than providing a substitute appellate rehearing of the entire disciplinary case.
The senior practitioner said the uncertainty raises a broader question about whether the LPDC should continue delivering disciplinary decisions while lawyers affected by them lack a settled appellate pathway.
“While there is need to maintain discipline within the Bar, you can’t turn lawyers into victims,” he said.
“You can’t discipline somebody and then he doesn’t have a right of appeal.”
He referred to the constitutional guarantee of fair hearing in the determination of civil rights and obligations and also invoked Article 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in raising concerns about the availability of an effective legal remedy.
He then posed what he described as one of the difficult questions now facing the profession: whether the LPDC should continue sitting without an immediately available statutory appeal mechanism, or whether its proceedings should be suspended until the problem is resolved.
“Do we continue to discipline lawyers and be striking their names off or suspending them, and then that is the end of it?” he asked.
“They have no appeal opportunity. They have no remedy. Or do we suspend the LPDC pending the time that a resolution or solution is found?”
The suggestion that the LPDC could be suspended or its sittings halted represents the senior lawyer’s position and the questions he says arose from the problem; the official NBA statement announcing the Body of Benchers committee did not state that the Body had resolved to suspend or disband the LPDC.
Indeed, legal analysis of Mene-Ejegi indicates that the Supreme Court decision did not invalidate the LPDC itself, its composition or its disciplinary powers. What the majority invalidated was the statutory provision purporting to send appeals directly from the LPDC to the Supreme Court.
The senior lawyer nevertheless warned that the consequences could grow as the LPDC continues determining disciplinary complaints.
“If LPDC continues to sit as it’s sitting, by the end of this year or next year, you probably have many lawyers who have been disciplined, and then they are stranded,” he said.
He contrasted the situation with ordinary trial courts, where parties generally know the established appellate hierarchy available after judgment.
“A High Court can be sitting because when it gives decisions, you have a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal,” he said. “They can be wrong; they can be right. But as it is now, a decision from LPDC seems final because there is presently no clear statutory appeal route.”
The development provides further context to the official announcement that NBA President Badejo-Okusanya was appointed to the Body of Benchers ad hoc panel.
Badejo-Okusanya attended her first Body of Benchers meeting as NBA President on September 17, where she was received by Chairman of the Body of Benchers and Life Bencher HRM Albert Akpomudje, SAN, former Chief Justice of Nigeria Justice Mahmud Mohammed, GCON, first female Body of Benchers Chairman Hairat Balogun, OON, and former Chief Justice Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, GCON.
Others included former Body of Benchers Chairman and former NBA President Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, as well as former NBA Presidents and Life Benchers Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, SAN; J.B. Daudu, SAN; Paul Usoro, SAN; Y.C. Maikyau, SAN, OON, and Immediate Past NBA President Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN.
The Supreme Court case now driving the institutional discussion arose from disciplinary proceedings against Ben Mene-Ejegi, who appealed directly to the apex court pursuant to Section 12(7) of the Legal Practitioners Act.
In its 5-2 majority judgment, the Supreme Court held that the Constitution establishes an exhaustive appellate structure and that an Act of the National Assembly cannot expand the apex court’s appellate jurisdiction beyond what Section 233 permits. It consequently declared Section 12(7) void to the extent that it purported to confer direct appellate jurisdiction on the Supreme Court and departed from its earlier position in Okike v. LPDC.
The result is now forcing the profession to confront a problem that goes beyond the particular case: how a lawyer sanctioned by the LPDC can obtain a substantive appeal against that decision under the current law.
For the senior lawyer who spoke with TheNigeriaLawyer, resolving that question is urgent because professional discipline and the right to challenge disciplinary findings must operate together.
His concern, he said, is ultimately “the fate of lawyers who are either facing trial or against whom decisions have already been taken.”
The Body of Benchers committee will now examine that question and advise on the way forward, including the implications of the Mene-Ejegi judgment for the statutory disciplinary framework. The NBA’s official statement has not disclosed a deadline for the committee’s work or indicated what recommendations it may ultimately make.
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