Emmanuel Obi
A public interest advocate, Darlington Onyebuchi Agoha, has called for transparency over alleged discrepancies in the academic and national service records of Nigeria’s Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu.
Agoha said he has joined efforts seeking clarification over what he described as a possible overlap between Kalu’s mandatory service under the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and his attendance at the Nigerian Law School.
In a statement, the advocate said official records currently under petition before the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) and the NYSC suggest that Kalu’s national service, reportedly conducted between March 2010 and March 2011, may have overlapped with his full-time Law School programme, which he said ran from April 2010 to July 2011.
According to Agoha, the issue raises questions about compliance with statutory requirements governing both programmes.
“Statutory integrity is not a suggestion; it is the law. You cannot be a full-time corps member and a full-time Law School student simultaneously without violating the strict 70 per cent attendance mandate of the Council of Legal Education,” he said.
Agoha noted that his involvement in the matter is separate from a previous 2023 High Court case filed in Umuahia concerning a change of name linked to the deputy speaker. He said he did not support that case, describing it as a distraction from more substantive legal concerns.
“For the record, I never supported the 2023 High Court suit in Umuahia against Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu because that case focused solely on a change of name, a matter long settled by the courts,” he said.
Agoha added that his current position is motivated by a call for accountability and adherence to the rule of law.
“This is not about politics; it is about whether the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria apply to everyone or only to those without power,” he said.
