The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is facing pushback from lawyers across Nigeria after declaring that charging legal fees in foreign currency is “unethical and illegal.”
The anti-graft agency made its position known on September 11, warning that it would prosecute lawyers who bill clients in dollars or other foreign currencies, insisting the naira remains the country’s legal tender.
Bawa Kaltungo, the EFCC’s Acting Director of the Lagos Zonal Directorate 2, Ikoyi, disclosed the agency’s stance during a courtesy visit by a delegation from the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Task Force on Illegal Practice of Law. He said the Commission is currently investigating two lawyers accused of charging clients in dollars.
“We have two cases of lawyers who were found to have charged fees in dollars. This is unethical and illegal, as the naira is the country’s legal tender,” Kaltungo said, adding that any lawyer found culpable would be prosecuted.
He also flagged cases of lawyers falsely invoking the EFCC’s name to justify inflated foreign-currency charges, warning practitioners to stop “name-dropping” the Commission to overcharge clients.
Lawyers push back
The EFCC’s position has drawn sharp criticism from legal practitioners who argue the agency has no statutory authority to regulate professional fees.
Nurudeen Abdulsalam, Chairman of the NBA’s Gwagwalada, FCT branch, said the Legal Practitioners Act vests the power to regulate lawyers’ remuneration in the Legal Practitioners Remuneration Committee, not the EFCC. He cited the Legal Practitioners Remuneration (For Business, Legal Service and Representation) Order 2023 as the enforceable framework for professional fees, and argued that no law explicitly bars lawyers from receiving fees in foreign currency. He also invoked Section 36(12) of the 1999 Constitution, which bars conviction for offences not defined by written law, warning against “prosecutorial overreach or intimidation.”
Dr. Uzoma Dioha, Chairman of the NBA’s Anaocha branch in Anambra State, echoed the argument, saying the EFCC must not conflate its mandate to fight financial crime with the separate matter of regulating legal fees. He pointed to the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, which recognises professional fees as a legitimate source of foreign currency, and cited Osun State Government v. Dalami Nigeria Ltd (2007) as precedent for dollar-denominated awards in Nigerian litigation.
Dioha acknowledged that Section 20 of the CBN Act makes the naira legal tender and that refusing naira payment is an offence, but insisted this does not automatically criminalise every foreign-currency fee arrangement. “No criminal offence can be created by a press statement,” he said, stressing that any prosecution must point to a specific written law.
Abuja-based lawyer Vivian Igbor described the EFCC’s directive as well-intentioned but impractical, noting that lawyers handling matters for foreign clients often have little choice but to charge in dollars, given that Nigerian litigation costs remain far lower than in countries like the United States.
Senior lawyer Chief Chukwuma Nwachukwu also faulted the EFCC’s position, arguing the agency “overstretched it a bit,” and noting that even the Federal Government, through the NNPC, routinely makes payments in dollars alongside naira.
The NBA’s new national leadership has yet to issue an official response to the EFCC’s directive.
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