By Kunle Kalejaye
The legality of lawyers accepting legal fees in US Dollars within Nigeria sits at a complex jurisprudential intersection of state sovereignty, freedom of contract, and executive police power in this instance the EFCC; and the agency’s mandate to enforce public order. Recent ambivalent statements by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) highlight a critical friction between lex lata (the law as it currently exists) and lex ferenda (the law as it ought to be). This tension pits statutory monetary nationalism, the protection of a single sovereign currency, against the pragmatic realities of globalized commercial advocacy.
Under Section 20 of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act 2007, the Naira is the sole domestic legal tender. A strict Austinian interpretation, a legal positivist theory viewing law purely as a command from a political sovereign backed by sanctions suggests, that pricing domestic services in foreign currency is illicit ab initio. However, this clashes with the libertarian doctrine of freedom of contract and the foundational maxim of pacta sunt servanda, the cornerstone principle of contract law dictating that agreements must be kept and performed in good faith. Nigerian courts have resolved this clash by distinguishing between the currency of account that is, the financial valuation metric used to determine value and the currency of payment which is the actual medium used to settle the debt. As established in Olaogun v. CBN (2015) and Kano Textile Printers Plc v. Globa S.A. (2002), contracts pegged to the US Dollar are valid, provided the obligation allows for settlement in the Naira equivalent at the prevailing market rate, or via formal banking channels into a designated domiciliary account.
The question of whether the EFCC can control this process invokes the administrative jurisprudence of ultra vires and the rule of law. The EFCC is a creature of statute, derived from the EFCC (Establishment) Act 2004; it possesses no inherent legislative or monetary authority. The power to regulate currency rests exclusively with the CBN and the National Assembly. Consequently, any attempt by an executive enforcement agency, like the EFCC, to issue a blanket prohibition against dollar fees constitutes an unconstitutional usurpation of power.
The agency’s stance on this issue has, with respect, been highly ambivalent. On September 11, 2026, the Acting Zonal Director of the EFCC Lagos Directorate, Bawa Kaltungo, explicitly characterized the billing of legal fees in foreign currency as “unethical and illegal,” even revealing that the commission was already investigating two lawyers for this practice. However, following immediate professional backlash, EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede was reported to have “clarified” the controversy. During a courtesy visit by the newly elected Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President, Mrs. Oyinkansola Badejo-Okusanya, SAN, to the EFCC headquarters on September 16, 2026, Olukoyede delivered a highly nuanced clarification. Rather than outrightly denying his commander’s statement or establishing a concrete legal position, the Chairman merely maintained that he remains the Commission’s sole official policy spokesman and that the zonal remarks should “not be treated as a general policy statement of the Commission without clarification”.
The NBA blog reported the visit under the screaming headline “EFCC CHAIRMAN CLARIFIES FOREIGN-CURRENCY LEGAL FEES CONTROVERSY”. The report was filed by the National Assistant Publicity Secretary of the NBA, Hadiza Nasir Ahmad, Esq. The relevant portion is quoted hereunder “Mr. Olukoyede further stated that the Lagos Zonal Director’s comments had been taken out of context and did not accurately convey the Commission’s position. He underscored the importance of context and accurate interpretation of statements made by EFCC officials, particularly where such statements have implications for the legal profession.”
Unfortunately, the EFCC Chair did not amplify on what the CORRECT policy position is!
This institutional hesitation underscores the reality that the legitimate point of convergence for EFCC intervention lies strictly within the sociological jurisprudence of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act (MLA) 2022. Under this architecture, legal practitioners are classified as Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs) subject to oversight by the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering (SCUML). The MLA 2022 prohibits cash transactions exceeding 5 million Naira (or its foreign currency equivalent) outside a financial institution.
This oversight remains heavily contested due to attorney-client privilege. In CBN v. Registered Trustees of the Nigerian Bar Association (2021), the Court of Appeal ruled that enforcing SCUML reporting requirements on lawyers violated Section 192 of the Evidence Act, holding that executive surveillance cannot destroy the constitutional right to legal representation. While the MLA 2022 attempted a legislative counter-move to capture law firms, the NBA maintains that professional privilege protects underlying retainer details.
Ultimately, the EFCC’s authority is legally confined to the perimeter of financial crime surveillance. The agency cannot orchestrate an absolute prohibition of dollar usage in legal retainers; its jurisdiction is strictly limited to prosecuting physical cash handling that violates statutory thresholds and enforcing anti-money laundering protocols. The true control of the process rests on compliance with financial regulations, not an absolute prohibition of the currency itself.
Asiwaju Kalejaye (SAN) is the founder and chairman of Eagle102.5 FM, Ilese-Ijebu
