By Kamsiyiochukwu Egede
The Police in Ebonyi, on Wednesday, arrested a man who claimed he was a lawyer.
The Voice gathered that on the said day, the suspect was stopped and questioned at the Union Bank Junction by members of the Car/Sticker team of the Nigerian Bar Association (Abakaliki Branch), after pasted stickers of the association was sighted in his vehicle.
The source, who pleaded anonymity, said in the course of the interrogation by the NBA Car/Sticker taskforce, the suspect sped off with one of the lawyers who had hopped into his car for further inquiries
When trailed and found, Police operatives were said to have arrested him when he was allegedly making a video and taking shots of the taskforce member with his Android phone and threatening to kill him and his members.
Narrating the incident to journalists, on Wednesday, in Abakaliki, the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Abakaliki Branch, Barr Okorie Ogbonna, said the suspect commited a crime by claiming to be a lawyer, while he was not. He also accused the suspect of kidnapping one of his members.
According to him, “In our branch or even at the national Secretariat, we have a unit that checks and monitors the use of NBA stickers by non lawyers and we work with the federal and state governments to enforce this. And in Abakaliki Branch, we have a committee called the NBA Car/Sticker Committee. This Committee monitors the fraudulent use of NBA stickers, beards and gowns.
“What necessitated this was the unwarranted use of the NBA stickers by some motorists, who impersonate legal practitioners.
Recently, we had a case of a vehicle with the NBA sticker, that brought arms and ammunition into the state. And we said we don’t like it and cannot fold our hands and watch people infiltrate the profession and destroy its image.”
