Section 25: Penalties for professional misconduct

(1) Where –
(a) a person enrolled or registered under this Act is adjudged by the Tribunal to be guilty of infamous conduct in any professional respect;
(b) a person enrolled or registered under this Act is convicted by any court or tribunal in Nigeria or elsewhere having power to impose a term of imprisonment for an offence, whether or not punishable with imprisonment, which is in the opinion of the Tribunal is incompatible with the status of a development studies and administrators professional; or
(c) the Tribunal is satisfied that the name of any person has been fraudulently enrolled or registered,
he commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.
(2) The Tribunal may, if it deems fit -
(a) give a directive reprimanding that person or ordering the Registrar to strike his name off the relevant part of the register; or
(b) defer or further defer its decision as to the giving of such directive under this section until a subsequent meeting of the Tribunal but
(i) no decision shall be deferred under this section for period exceeding one year in the aggregate, and
(ii) no person shall be a member of the Tribunal for the purposes of reaching a decision which has been deferred or further deferred unless he was present as a member of the Tribunal when that decision was deferred.
(3) For the purpose of subsection (1) (b), a person shall not be treated as convicted unless the conviction stands at a time when no appeal or further appeal is pending or no application for extension of time to appeal is brought in connection with the conviction.
(4) When the Tribunal gives a directive under subsection (2), the Tribunal shall cause notice of the directive to be served on the person to whom it relates.
(5) The person to whom a directive under subsection (2) relates may, at any time within 21 days from the date of service on him of notice of the directives, appeal against the directives to the Federal High Court and the Tribunal may appear as respondent to the appeal and for the purpose of enabling directives to be given as to the costs of the appeal proceedings before the Federal High Court, the Tribunal shall be deemed to be a party to it whether or not it appears at the hearing of the appeal.
(6) A directive on the Tribunal under this section shall take effect where -
(a) no appeal under this section is brought against the directive within the time limited for appeal;
(b) such an appeal is brought and is withdrawn or struck out for want of prosecution on the withdrawal or striking out of appeal; or
(c) such appeal is brought and is not withdrawn or stuck out, if and when the appeal is dismissed, and shall not take effect except in accordance with provisions of this subsection.
(7) A person whose name is struck off the register under a directive of the Tribunal in this section shall not be entitled to be registered again except under a directive in that behalf given by the Federal High Court on the application of that person.
(8) A directive under this section for the striking off of a person's name from the register may prohibit an application under this subsection by that person until the expiration of such period from the date of the directive, and where he has recently made such an application from the date of his last application, as may be specified in the directive.