In a landmark decision delivered on 23 February 2018 in Heritage Bank Ltd v. Bentforth Finance (Nigeria) Ltd, the Supreme Court of Nigeria appeared to abandon in part, the rule that any process that was signed by a person who was not called to the Nigerian Bar was incompetent. In this decision, the Supreme Court declared that, except for originating processes, courts should no longer strike out court processes that are inadvertently signed in the name of a law firm, unless the other party objects to such irregularity at the earliest opportunity. Before this decision, the Supreme Court had previously laid down a rule in Okafor v. Nweke to the effect that a court process signed by a law firm rather than by a natural person called to the Bar in Nigeria was “incompetent and liable to be struck out”.
