By OLUSOJI DAOMI
The darkness had not yet lifted when they came for him. It was 5:30 a.m. on February 10, 2021. Kola Sodiya Esq., a legal practitioner of the Nigerian Bar, was en route to the airport when police officers from Zone II, Onikan, Lagos — acting on the orders of their superiors and at the behest of private citizens locked in a property dispute — blocked his vehicle, dragged him from his car, and arrested him without a warrant of arrest, without a letter of invitation, without the slightest whisper of due process.
The “crime” for which this father, this husband, this officer of the court, was ambushed like a common fugitive? He had dared to represent his clients — the beneficiaries of the estate of the late Chief Joseph Gbolade Odusina — in a land dispute over property at No. 1 Banjoko Street, Harmony Estate, Ifako Gbagada, Lagos. A dispute, mind you, that was already the subject of civil litigation in Suit No. ID/9610LMW/2020 before the Lagos State High Court. A dispute that the Director of Public Prosecutions, in Charge No. I/44A/2019, had already examined and advised was purely civil in nature — advising that the parties should “approach a Civil Court or Land Grabbers.”
Yet the police, those sworn guardians of our Constitution, chose to treat a civil matter as a criminal conspiracy. They chose to arrest first and investigate later — or rather, arrest first and manufacture excuses afterwards. They chose to become enforcers for private interests, wearing the uniform of the state while serving the agenda of the highest bidder.
This is the story of how the Court of Appeal, in a landmark judgment delivered on July 10, 2026, in Appeal No. CA/LAG/CV/904/2022, looked the Nigerian Police Force in the eye and said: Enough.
To understand the seismic importance of this judgment, one must first appreciate the constitutional architecture it protects. Section 35(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as Amended 2023) declares with the force of thunder: “Every person shall be entitled to his personal liberty and no person shall be deprived of such liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure permitted by law.”
The only exception — and I emphasise, the only exception — is found in Section 35(1)(c): arrest upon “reasonable suspicion of his having committed a criminal offence.” Not suspicion manufactured from thin air. Not suspicion conjured to settle a land dispute. Not suspicion that arrives four months after the arrest, dressed in the borrowed robes of a belated legal advice.
Here is where the police case collapsed under the weight of their own evidence. The Appellants — the Inspector General of Police, the Assistant Inspector General of Police Zone II Onikan, the Officer in Charge of Legal Zone II, and the individual officers who executed this dawn raid — claimed they acted on “reasonable suspicion” and pursuant to legal advice. But their own investigation report, dated February 12, 2021 — a mere two days after Sodiya’s arrest — told a devastatingly different story. In the words of the investigating officer, captured at page 195 of the Record of Appeal:
“Investigation into this matter revealed that all allegations leveled against the suspect were fruitless. The case emanated from a land dispute between parties, signatures of the suspect and petitioner was taken to Forensic for expert analysis and it was discovered that the signature alleged to be forged by the suspect was signed by one and the same person. I am of the opinion that case be civil and the aggrieved go to court for redress.”
The police arrested Sodiya on February 10, 2021. Their own investigation, completed by February 12, 2021, found no criminal case. Yet the “legal advice” they claimed justified the arrest was dated June 16, 2021 — four months after the fact. As the Court of Appeal, per Justice Yargata Byenchit Nimpar (JCA), with Justices Muslim S. Hassan and Paul Ahmed Bassi concurring, devastatingly observed: “How then was the Respondent arrested on a legal advice issued on the 16th of June, 2021?”
This is not law enforcement. This is time travel in reverse — arrest first, justify later.
The court, in its wisdom, invoked the immortal words of the Supreme Court in Fawehinmi v. Inspector General of Police (2002) LPELR1258 (SC): “I think I can say this that in a proper investigation procedure, it is unlawful to arrest until there is sufficient evidence upon which to charge and caution a suspect. It is completely wrong to arrest, let alone caution a suspect, before the Police look for evidence implicating him.”
What does this mean for the trader in Alaba market, the student in Ibadan, the pensioner in Kano? It means the police cannot wake you from your sleep, throw you into a cell, and then start searching for what you might have done. That is not policing. That is kidnapping with a badge.
But the Court of Appeal did not stop at the unlawfulness of the arrest. It confronted a deeper malaise in our policing culture — the weaponisation of criminal procedure to settle civil scores.
The Supreme Court, in Diamond Bank v. Opara (2018) 7 NWLR (Pt. 1617) 92, had already sounded the alarm with the moral clarity of a prophet: “What is even more disturbing in recent times is the way and manner the Police and some other security agencies, rather than focus squarely on their statutory functions of investigation, preventing and prosecuting crimes, allow themselves to be used by overzealous and/or unscrupulous characters for the recovery of debts arising from simple contracts, loans or purely civil transactions… The beauty of salt is in its taste. Once salt loses its own taste, its value is irredeemably lost.”
Justice Nimpar’s court applied this principle with surgical precision. The property dispute was already sub judice — before a court of competent jurisdiction. The Supreme Court in I.N.E.C. v. Youth Party (2023) 7 NWLR (Pt. 1883) 249 had declared: “Once there is a lis inter partes and a court of law is seized with the dispute no person or authority… is allowed by the Constitution to usurp the functions of the court of law.”
The message is as clear as the waters of the Lagos lagoon at dawn: The machinery of criminal justice cannot be deployed as a tool for coercion in civil disagreements. When two parties are fighting over land, you do not send armed policemen to arrest one party’s lawyer at 5:30 a.m. You let the court decide. That is what civilised societies do. That is what the Constitution demands.
Yet perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of this judgment is its unflinching affirmation of personal liability for police officers who misuse their powers.
The police officers argued, as they always do, that they were mere agents of a disclosed principal — the Inspector General of Police — and therefore immune from personal suit. They cited the ancient principle that an agent of a disclosed principal incurs no liability. They invoked Section 32(1) of the Nigeria Police Force (Establishment) Act, 2020, and Section 3 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.
The Court of Appeal’s response was a masterclass in constitutional accountability. Section 341 of the Police Regulations Cap P19 LFN 2004 creates an explicit exception: personal liability attaches where there is “misuse of powers or acting in excess of authority.” And what greater misuse of power than to ambush a legal practitioner at an “ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m.,” without warrant or invitation, despite his known addresses, his previous voluntary cooperation, his written communication about the pending civil matter, and his failing health?
The court cited Aondoaka v. Obot & Anor (2021) LPELR56605 (SC), where the Supreme Court held that public officers who maliciously use their office to commit unlawful acts should be personally liable. It cited Anogwie & Ors v. Odom & Ors. (2016) LPELR40214 (CA). It upheld the Federal High Court’s award of ₦5,000,000.00 in damages against the 2nd to 5th Appellants personally — not against the Nigeria Police Force as an institution, but against the individual officers who chose to become lawbreakers in uniform.
This is jurisprudential dynamite. For too long, Nigerian police officers have hidden behind the shield of “I was following orders.” This judgment says: Not anymore. The uniform is not a licence to violate rights. The badge is not a passport to impunity. When you arrest without cause, when you detain without justification, when you terrorise citizens at the behest of private paymasters, you will pay from your own pocket.
Let us not forget the private instigators — the 6th to 8th Respondents at the trial court, whose names were struck out on appeal but whose role in this sordid affair the Court of Appeal did not ignore. The lower court had awarded another ₦5,000,000.00 against them for instigating the unlawful arrest. The appellate court affirmed this too.
This sends a dual message: to the police, that they cannot be hired guns for private disputes; and to citizens, that you cannot use the police as your personal army. The law sees you. The law will hold you accountable.
The Federal High Court, in the judgment of Honourable Justice A. LewisAllagoa delivered on March 28, 2022, in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/444/2021, had granted three declaratory and injunctive reliefs: that the arrest was unlawful, illegal, and unconstitutional; that the continuous harassment was unconstitutional, illegal, null and void; and an order restraining the police from further arresting or harassing Sodiya based on this property dispute.
The Court of Appeal, in the judgment of Justice Yargata Byenchit Nimpar (JCA), dismissed the police appeal in its entirety. It resolved all five issues for determination in favour of the Respondent and against the Appellants. It affirmed that the lower court was not perverse. It affirmed that damages were legally mandated under Section 35(6) of the Constitution. It affirmed that personal liability attaches to rogue officers.
This is not merely a victory for Kola Sodiya. This is a victory for every Nigerian who has ever been woken by a midnight knock, every trader whose goods have been seized by police acting for a creditor, every tenant whose landlord has sent policemen to evict them, every young man stopped at a checkpoint and extorted because “you look like a Yahoo boy.”
So what must we do with this judgment? We must know it. Every Nigerian must know that Section 35(1) of the Constitution is not a suggestion — it is a shield. Every Nigerian must know that the Police Act, 2020, requires investigation before arrest, not arrest as prelude to investigation. Every Nigerian must know that a civil dispute remains civil, no matter how powerful your opponent, no matter how many policemen they can summon.
We must use it. If you are arrested without warrant, without invitation, without reasonable suspicion — cite IGP & 4 Ors. v. Sodiya (2026) CA/LAG/CV/904/2022. Demand to see the legal advice that predates your arrest. Demand to know the investigation that justifies your detention. If the police cannot show these, they are not enforcing law — they are breaking it.
We must demand reform. This judgment is a judicial BandAid on a systemic wound. Until the Nigeria Police Force is fundamentally restructured, until recruitment emphasises character over connection, until training instils constitutional fidelity rather than brute obedience, we will continue to produce officers who see the uniform as licence rather than service.
The Court of Appeal has done its part. It has spoken in the language of justice, with the authority of the Constitution, with the courage that Nigerians expect from their judiciary. Now it is our turn — as citizens, as writers, as lawyers, as voters — to ensure that this judgment does not gather dust in law reports, but becomes a living sword in the hands of every Nigerian who refuses to bow before the tyranny of the uniform.
For as the Supreme Court warned in Diamond Bank v. Opara: once salt loses its taste, its value is irredeemably lost. The Nigeria Police Force was established to protect us, not to prey upon us. The Court of Appeal, in this landmark judgment, has reminded them of that sacred truth.
The question is: will they listen? And if they will not, will we — the people — make them?
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