Day judge caught me lying my client had tuberculosis to secure him bail

Yusuf Olarewaju Aluko first secured admission to study medicine at Bayero University, Kano State in 1990 but was withdrawn at 300 level. He went back to Secondary School, wrote JAMB and was admitted to the same University to study law in 1995 and finally graduated in 2000. Subsequently, he went to the Nigerian Law School and was called to Bar in 2001. He served at the branch of NNPC in Abuja. After his NYSC, he began his pupilage with Yusuf Ali (SAN), in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, before returning to Abuja and later to Kogi State. But in 2005, Aluko returned to Ilorin to manage his brother’s law firm, Sa’ad & Co. In this piece, he shares with PILOT JUDICIARY one of his most dramatic day in court as a legal practitioner. Excerpts:
Out of the numerous days I cannot forget in my life in the course of discharging my years of practice was the day I handled a criminal matter at Kwara State High Court in respect to a robbery at Government House.
On this fateful day, I was trying to file a bail application for my client and I needed to give court reason for the action. Then, I thought presenting my client as someone suffering from tuberculosis, though he was actually suffering from an ailment which we were unable to diagnose because of the fact that he was in custody all along. Then I told him, I will tell the court he has tuberculosis and he agreed.
Whenever we had the matter, my client will be making a kind of disturbing and embarrassing cough in which the whole court will become uncomfortable, some of us who are lawyers will be using handkerchiefs to cover our faces. But little did I know that my luck was too good to last, he was in the witness box that day.
While we were in court on this particular day again, I discovered he (client) has forgotten to continue coughing persistently maybe he was tired, then, from my seat, I whispered as well as gesticulated to him to continue the cough and increase the tempo’. Lo and behold, the judge saw me making the demonstration. Then, he said, Mr… are you telling him to cough? I denied but responded that I was only telling him to stand right. Everybody in court just burst into laughter saying definitely, we staged the cough all along. I was so disturbed then because of the perception the judge might have about me.