ADEKA & ANOR.
V.
VAATIA

AGBAJE, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): When this appeal came on for hearing on Monday, 30th June, 1986, a letter from one, Gordon Esa, Esq., who described himself in it as an attorney-at-law, was brought to the notice of the Court. In the letter, Mr. Esa who described himself, again as solicitor for the respondent asked for an adjournment of the case on the grounds that he was bereaved in that he had just lost an uncle of his who had since been buried. We discovered that the brief of arguments of the respondent on whose behalf Mr. Gordon Esa wrote for an adjournment, was settled by a firm of solicitors who described themselves as Gordon Esa and Co. Solicitor, of 5, Otukpo Road, Makurdi. We refused to accede to Mr. Esa's application for an adjournment for the reasons given in our ruling written in court on the day. The reasons briefly stated are that if any member of a firm of solicitors acting for the litigant is unable, for one reason or another to appear, in court, any ot…