A controversial lawyer and social media sensation Ifunanya Excel Grant, commonly known as Baddest Lawyer, has said she had been a model and actress before she earned a law degree and became a lawyer.
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) recently petitioned the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee with allegations of misconduct against Ifunanya.
NBA said it had received complaints against Miss Ifunanya which centred on the notoriety she had gained for posting pictures and videos of herself unclad and smoking marijuana.
Ifunanya, who made this known in a video she shared on her Tiktok page as her reaction to the move by the NBA, said she “is not a practising lawyer”.
In the video, Ifunanya said there are tons of fake social media accounts in her name.
She added that her lifestyle on social media is not a reflection of her qualification as a lawyer and that her posts are to promote her career as a model, singer and actress.
She said, “If I keep quiet, it is going to be an admission of quilt. It is good for me to come out and actually clear my name. First and foremost, forget the fact that I am popular on social media. I would like to state that there are so many fake accounts of me. There are over 20 on Instagram.
“Likewise on Twitter, Twitter is even worse because I have never been on the app. I have never ever been on Twitter for one day. But there are tons of accounts. All these accounts you can see(on Twitter), they are all fake pages with my name or my face. And I think it is because ever since Twitter started policy of payment for verification they’ve lost the moral. They no longer ask people for providing per identification before they verify. They just verify anyone willing to pay them.
“Secondly, I am not a practising lawyer. I am a lawyer by book. I am not practising. At least for now, I don’t have interest to practise, maybe some days in the future. But right now, I am not practising.
“I am a model. I am an actress. I am an upcoming musician, a rapper to be precise. Everything I do, everything I post is just for entertainment purposes. It has nothing to do with my legal career. I am not practising law. I don’t have the intention to practice law for now. So right now, my focus is for the entertainment.
“Before I even became a lawyer, I was a model. I have always been a model. I have always been into music, I have always been an actress. Lawyer is just one of the numerous things I am. I am thinking about hustling. Living my own thing. Everything I posted on social media, I act in my capacity as a model, as an actress, an upcoming musician and as upcoming rapper.
“I also want us to point out the fact that social media is not a real place. A lot of things can be doctored, manipulated, exaggerated to seem larger than it really is.”
In a statement made on Tuesday and signed by its Chairman, Innocent Egwu and Secretary, K. C. Okoro, the Aba branch of the NBA said Ifunanya was not one of its members and that she was “unknown” to them.
“For the records, we wish to state categorically that Miss Ifunanya Excel Grant is not a member of the NBA, Aba Branch, and she is unknown to NBA, Aba Branch.
“While we support every effort of our great association, the NBA, to rid the legal profession of the few bad eggs, we must request that painstaking efforts be taken by officers concerned to ensure that innocent and law-abiding practitioners are not unwittingly held out in bad light to the public,” it said.