Court orders Lagos PDP to pay lawyer N10m

A Lagos High Court sitting in Ike­ja has ordered the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to pay N10.5 million pro­fessional fees due to a legal practitioner, Mr. Debo Adeleke for services rendered to the party. Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye gave the order yesterday while deliv­ering a summary judgment on a case between Adeleke, the national headquar­ters of PDP and its state chapter.

The court also ordered the party to pay a N50, 000 cost in favour of the claimant.
Adeleke had dragged both the national headquarters and Lagos State branch of the PDP to court over their failure to pay him his outstanding legal fees.
The lawyer had sued the PDP for failing to pay the balance of his legal fees after he had made 180 representations for the party.
The matter, which commenced in Febru­ary, saw only the national leadership of the party being represented by a counsel, Mr. Chukwuma Nmesirionye.
In an application dated October 6, 2014, counsel to Adeleke, Mr. Benson Akeredolu, had drawn the attention of the court to the continuous absence of Lagos PDP or its representative from the court proceed­ings, saying the state chapter of the party had been served with all the processes but chose not to respond. He, therefore, urged the court to enter into a summary judgment against the state PDP.
In her ruling, the judge held that the sec­ond defendant (Lagos PDP) breached the provisions of Order 11 Rule 4 of the High Court of Lagos State Civil Procedure Rules.
She stated that the proof of service before the court showed that the party was served with the court processes but refused to file its response to the claimant’s affidavit.
Ipaye said the non-compliance with the court rules had shown that the party was not interested in defending the suit.
She said the court was more than satisfied with the totality of the unchallenged facts of the claimant and therefore entered judgment in Adeleke’s favour.
Justice Ipaye ordered the Lagos PDP to pay the sum of N10, 550, 000 to Adeleke as outstanding legal fees at an annual interest rate of 10 per cent.
Adeleke’s counsel stated that his client had handled seven cases for the PDP at the Lagos State Local Government Elections Petitions Tribunal between November 2011 and August 2012.