13.3.2025
There was commotion during a hearing at a Port Harcourt Magistrate Court March 11 when a lawyer who was confirmed dead in December 2025 appeared in Court to represent a client.
The court presided over by Senior Magistrate Kingsley Briggs had begun the day’s proceedings and would later be thrown into bewilderment when a case was called for a litigant to appear. When the Magistrate asked him the whereabout of his counsel, he told the court that his lawyer passed away in December 2025.
But Magistrate Briggs was stunned to hear the lawyer had passed on, because he had on February 10, 2026, appeared in the same court to plead with court not to issue a bench warrant against his client, explaining that the litigant was ill and required medical attention.
And on that plea Magistrate Briggs adjourned the matter till March 11, 2026, only to hear that the lawyer was deceased.
The litigant insisted that his lawyer had passed on two months before the February court appearance. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Port Harcourt, vice chairman who was present in court, contacted the deceased lawyer’s family.
A family member confirmed that the lawyer had indeed died in December 2025 after he was strangled to death his apartment in Oyigbo area of Port Harcourt. He disclosed that the police were currently investigating his death.
The strange development left both the court and observers confused, raising questions about how the name of the deceased lawyer came to be recorded as present during the February court proceedings.
Court officials were said to be reviewing records to determine what transpired during the earlier sitting.
The case was subsequently adjourned.