Lawyers hired by the All Progressives Congress to defend the party and its candidates at election petition tribunals are complaining about non-payment of their professional fees, six months after the 2023 general elections.
The lawyers claim that the APC national secretariat has been delaying payment, introducing a new payment scale directed by the Party’s National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, and National Legal Adviser, Prof Abdulkarim Abubakar Kana.
Before Ganduje took over, lawyers were paid up to N8.5 million in legal fees, according to Nigerian Tribune.
However, they are now being offered a flat rate of N1 million, including Senior Advocates of Nigeria.
The lawyers are unhappy with the reduced payment, considering their effort and workload.
They were required to provide written updated reports of court proceedings and prompt and regular reports.
The lawyers expressed disappointed with the party’s offer, stating that it is not commensurate with the work done.
They had to travel, pay for accommodation and logistics, and file matters with their own funds without mobilization.
They claimed that the previous National Chairman and National Legal Adviser had paid them well, but the current leadership has not settled their fees for pre-election matters.
On the issue of professional fees, “Counsel is required to forward a bill of professional fee and details of the bank account of the Firm to the office of the National Legal Adviser upon acceptance of the brief for necessary consideration by the Party” the APC stated and assured that, “the approved professional fee for this brief shall be in accordance with the scale of fees as approved by the Party”.
“Despite the workload, research, and painstaking efforts put in to effectively handle both pre-election matters as well as election petition cases at the various courts and tribunals, the lawyers are lamenting that the N1 million being offered them by the APC was meagre and not commensurate with the work done.
“The annoying thing is that some lawyers travelled to some States, paid hotel accommodation, and flight tickets, took care of other logistics, and even filed matters with their funds without mobilization,” one of the lawyers lamented angrily.
The lawyers hinted that before the resignation of Ahmed El-Marzuq, APC’s National Legal Adviser in August 2023, who is believed to be a close ally of the former National Chairman of APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, “we were being paid as much as N8.5 million per lawyer.
“Since Ganduje came as the National Chairman of APC, they have not paid our fees for pre-election matters.
“The previous APC National Chairman and National Legal Adviser tried very well when it comes to settling legal fees but, what the Party is offering now is not commendable.
“After 6 months of the election, we wrote and reminded them severally, before they even responded with a reply that we should come and take N1 million.
“Worrisome is the fact that they are trying to pay N1 million flat rate for legal representations at all levels of the courts, be it trial, appellate or apex court”, a source at one of the law firms said.
