The Benin branch of the Nigerian Bar Association on Tuesday began a boycott of High Court 6 presided over by Justice Courage Ogbebor over alleged highhandedness.
Senior and junior lawyers have complained over the activities of the judge, including a situation where she was said to have delayed a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, instructing him to wait for his turn instead of taking his case as practice demands.
“It is against our practice to delay a SAN’s case no matter how many cases before his. But in this case, she kept the SAN till the end of her sitting,” a lawyer stated.
“The general house after reviewing the various complaints of lawyers with regards to the incessant and unabating harassment, intimidation, outright insults and deliberate embarrassment to counsels appearing before his lordship, including SANs and very senior members of the bar, in the presence of clients and would-be clients, resolved unanimously to immediately and totally commence an indefinite boycott of High Court 6, High Court of Justice, Benin presided over by the Hon. Justice Courage Ogbebor.
“Consequently, all members of the Benin Bar are by this notice directed to embark on a total boycott of the said court,” the lawyers, in a statement by the Chairman and Secretary of the branch, Pius Oiwoh and Andrew Lawani, said.
The statement warned that any member who flouted the directive would be blacklisted at the branch and made to face its disciplinary committee.”
