Court orders engineer to defend himself if he fails to get a lawyer

An engineer, Kayode Adebanju, was on Tuesday told by an Ikeja High Court to prepare to defend himself if he fails to get a lawyer to defend him in a charge brought against him for  issuing dud cheques to the tune of N31 million to one Lukman Abuduni.

Counsel to the prosecution, T.A. Arabi, had earlier told the judge that no lawyer had announced appearance for the defendant in four previous court sittings.

“I pray this court that on the next adjourned date, if the defendant doesn’t have a lawyer to represent him, he will have no other option than to represent himself in court,” Mr. Arabi added.

Justice Sedoten Ogunsanya who was mildly amused, noted that the prosecution lawyer at some point during previous proceedings had been absent in court.

“Registrar, tell the defendant that if his lawyer does not come to court on the next adjourned date, he will be defending this case by himself,” Judge Ogunsanya added.

In the suit, Mr. Abuduni had, sometimes in November 2012, supplied Mr. Adebanju iron rods totalling N89 million out of which the latter allegedly paid N28 million.

“After a long wait in futility for the completion of the money, I made a primary investigation in the site which revealed that the engineer had collected the money,” Mr. Lukman said.

“When I asked him for the completion of the money he issued me three cheques totaling N31 million. When I found out that the cheques were dud cheques, I used them as evidence to petition him at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,” he said.