SIGNING OF COURT PROCESS(ES): Proper person to sign a legal process/effect of legal documents signed/franked by a law firm "The issue of lack of jurisdiction in the lower Court which is raised in both the main appeal and cross-appeal is founded on the manner the writ of summons and the counterclaim, including the motion by which time was extended to deem it filed, were signed not by Legal Practitioners but by the law firm of Uwakwe Abugu & Co. in respect of the writ of summons and original statement of claim, and by Kayode Olatoke & Co. in respect of the said motion on notice dated and filed on 13/5/2005 and its counterclaim both of which span pages 98 - 111 of the records of appeal. It is now well settled in our jurisprudence that only Legal Practitioners called to the Bar as stated in Sections 2(1) and 24 of the Legal Practitioners Act, and not law firms, can sign legal processes including originating process. This position is so well entrenched in our jurisprudence that it is no longer open to disputation. The cases of Okafor v. Nweke (2007) 10 NWLR (PT. 1043) 521 (S.C.); Guaranty Trust Bank Plc v. Innoson (Nig.) Ltd (2017) LPELR-42368 (SC); Bukola v. Oshundahunsi (2012) LPELR-8546 (CA); Nigerian Army v. Samuel (2013) 14 NWLR (PT. 1375) 466 @ 483; Ministry of Works & Transport, Adamawa State v. Yakubu (2013) 6 NWLR (PT. 1351) 481 @ 496 (SC); Consortium Ltd v. NNPC (2011) 9 NWLR (PT. 1252) 317 and FBN Ltd v. Maiwada (2013) 5 NWLR (PT. 1348) 444 cited by both parties establish that point beyond doubt. I guess that also was the reason behind the claimant/appellant/cross-respondent's well informed and commendable decision not to contest defendants'/respondents'/cross-appellants' attack on the validity of its writ of summons, nay its claim, despite the fact that the trial judge ruled in its favour when cross-appellant raised that same point in their address before that Court. An incompetent processes, contrary to the reasoning of the lower Court, cannot be corrected or amended. Any purported amendment of such process is also invalid and amounts to waste of time. Incidentally, I had cause (in company and concurrence of my learned brothers Lokulo-Sodipe and Akinbami, JJ.C.A) to address this same issue comprehensively in my Unreported lead Judgment of 07/03/2016 in CA/EK/82/2016: Abiodun Akinyede & Anor v. Dr. Francis Akinyede. So, Folayan J. was, with due respect, incorrect when she held in her judgment while overruling cross-appellant that: "It would be recalled that there was an amendment granted by this Court to amend the original processes filed in 2003. The complaint here is on the originating process filed on 11th June 2003 (writ of summons) and 17th October, 2005 (statement of claim). There was an application granted for amendment and this complaint and objection is not on the amended statement of claim. An amended process supersedes the original which was amended and the process of this Court which brought hat amendment into being is still a valid decision of this Court which has not been challenged or reversed on appeal."

In my aforementioned unreported judgment in Abiodun Akinyede & Anor v. Dr. Francis Akinyede, I referenced Order 5 Rule 1 of the old Ondo State High Court Rules stating that writ of summons shall be prepared by Legal Practitioner. Order 5 Rules 1 and 2 of the now repealed Kwara State High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 1989 applicable in the lower Court in 2003 when appellant/cross-respondent filed its summon also states that it is the plaintiff's solicitor or the Registrar of Court, if the plaintiff is illiterate or doesn't have a solicitor, that shall prepare writ of summons.

It reads: Order 5. R.1(1) A writ of summons shall be issued by the Registrar, or other officer of the Court empowered to issue summons, on application. (2) The application shall ordinarily be made in writing by the plaintiff's solicitor by completing from 1 in the Appendix to these Rules, but the Registrar or other officer as aforesaid, where the applicant for a writ of summons is illiterate, or has no solicitor, may dispense with a written application and instead himself record full particulars of an oral application made and on that record a writ of summons may be prepared, signed and issued.'

Also worthy of note are the provisions of Order 5 Rule 1 of the 2005 Rules of the High Court of Kwara State stating that 'Originating process shall be prepared by a claimant or his Legal Practitioner .....' Uwakwe Abugu & Co. not being a solicitor or Legal Practitioner as defined by the Legal Practitioners Act cannot validly prepare let alone sign a writ of summons, consequently the writ it prepared and signed for appellant/cross-respondent is invalid and remained so regardless of the amendment the lower Court purports to have granted it. In the light of that, the cross-appeal has merit and is allowed."

Per UGO, J.C.A. in UNITY BANK v. KAY PLASTICS (NIG) LTD & ANOR CITATION: (2018) LPELR-44977(CA)