The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikorodu branch, Lagos and two families have raised the alarm over one Dr. Charles who is allegedly parading himself as a lawyer and extorting money from unsuspecting members of the public.
A petition to the Inspector General of Police, and copied to the President of NBA and Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 2, signed by the Chairman of the branch, Adebayo Akinlade and the Assistant Secretary, Oluwaseun Aka, accused Charles of criminal conspiracy, threat to life and impersonation. Other accusations leveled against him are intimidation, false information, forgery, obtaining by false pretence, which the association believes to be conducts that are likely to cause breach of peace.
They stated that it was unfortunate that the fellow has resulted to illegal acts as means of livelihood to the detriment of his victims.
The association, therefore, demanded his immediate arrest and prosecution.
The petition read in part: “That being legal practitioners, who were called to the Bar and practicing till date, it is our duty to ensure that the society is cleansed of any form of criminal activities of this person, who has been parading himself as a lawyer, and as a result, enriches himself by duping innocent members of the public.
“It is imperative to state among the surreptitious means used by Charles in duping people, are not but limited to proclaiming himself as personal assistant to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, by collecting huge sums of money from clients under the guise of filing court processes on their behalf. He also moves about parading himself as a close ally to the former governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Tinubu.
“His act of lawlessness cannot be quantified as they are barbaric and dastard. It is our firm belief that the law is no respecter of anybody. All efforts to make him change his fraudulent acts have proved abortive. We have been facing challenges over fake lawyers within our jurisdiction in the last two years.”
The association added that having been disturbed with the unhealthy development, its former vice chairman was mandated to conduct a discrete investigation on the said Charles.
“He is ready to testify against the impostor if he is prosecuted in court. We hereby seek to alert the constituted authorities to investigate these assertions so as to bring him to book. We have all evidences to back our allegations against him and we shall not hesitate to provide them when required.
“The policemen from Zone 2 Command, Onikan, Lagos, have in their possession several incriminating documents that were retrieved from his office when a search warrant was dully executed on his office at Igbogbo, Ikorodu on July 12, 2019.
“It is our firm belief that you will do justice to our humble request so that the unjust will not go unpunished,” the petition read.
Similarly, the families of Ajako and Shosanya of Owode Ibeshe in Ikorodu, petitioned the IGP over criminal conspiracy and threat to life against Charles.
It was gathered that the problem arose as a result of Charles alleged pretence to represent the families over a case resulting from a land dispute.
In a quest to resolve the issue, the letter which was signed by Tayo Ladega read in parts: “Our clients contacted Charles, who presented himself as a lawyer to help reclaim their expanse of land from NICHEMTX Ltd. But when our clients discovered that he was not a lawyer, the job to reclaim the land was revoked.
“To the chagrin of our clients, Charles has resulted to the use of mobile policemen whom he brought to the site of our clients and he also has been using the mobile policemen to terrorise family members of our clients.
“They fired gun shots severally within Owode Ibeshe and an attempt was also made to assassinate a family member by name, Ibrahim Shonoiki on March 23, 2019. We shall provide Shonoiki to testify to their dastard act on the said date.”