What happened to Omoyele Sowore on the 23rd of October 2025 is a direct insult to the rule of law and a reminder that executive impunity still walks freely in our democracy. The arrest, or more appropriately, the abduction of Sowore by the Nigeria Police Force shortly after his court appearance, is a blatant violation of the law and an assault on the very essence of constitutional liberty.
After his appearance in the Federal High Court, officers of the Nigeria Police approached him, claiming that the Commissioner of Police, FCT Command, wanted to see him. Sowore, without resistance, agreed to follow them. Instead of taking him to the Commissioner, they diverted him to the office of the Deputy Commissioner CID, and from there to the IRT facility known as the “Abattoir,” where he was unlawfully detained. His learned counsel, a renowned human right lawyer, Tope Temokun, confirmed that there was no charge, no allegation, and no warrant of arrest shown at any point.
That act alone offends the Constitution. When a citizen is arrested, the law requires that he must be informed at the time of arrest of the nature of his offence. Sowore was not. The police had no allegation, no petition, no lawful ground to detain him. Their only excuse was that there was a “court order” allegedly restraining protests around certain government institutions.
This excuse collapses under the weight of basic legal reasoning. The said order was not served on Sowore or Sahara Reporters. An order obtained vide motion ex parte ought to be served on the parties to keep them notified. The case in which the order was made, FRN v. Sowore, is not a criminal charge but a civil matter, filed under the Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules. It does not matter that the subject areas are of public interest. This is an order any private citizen could obtain in protection of property. Therefore, any alleged disobedience of that order amounts, at worst, to a civil contempt ex facie curiae; a contempt said to have occurred outside the face of the court.
In law, enforcement of civil contempt arising from a civil order, especially one outside court, does not start with a police invitation or arrest. The procedure has been affirmed in several authorities, including Obiekwe Aniweta v. The State (FSA/E/47/78), Awobukun v. Adeyemi (1968), Afe Babalola v. Federal Electoral Commission & Adegborioye (AK/MA/77 of 21/2/78), and Rhodes v. Obiyan (ID/79/76L). The proper procedure is clear: the aggrieved applicant must approach the same court by a motion on notice seeking an order of committal against the non-complying respondent. Only the court, upon such application and proof of service, may issue a warrant of arrest or bench warrant. It does not begin with police arrest, it does not proceed by executive discretion, and it cannot be justified by force. Moreover, the allegedly defied motion ex parte has been slated for hearing on notice on October 20, 2025, when the court can decide whether to punish for contempt.
The police, by taking it upon themselves to enforce an alleged contempt in a civil matter, have stepped outside the boundary of law. Making an arrest without warrant is a direct aberration. The Penal Code, applicable in the FCT, does not create any offence of contempt or disobedience to a civil court order. Section 152 of the Penal Code only deals with property offences and defiance of lawful direction by a public officer, which does not apply here. Section 6 of the Penal Code merely recognizes that the power to punish for contempt resides in the courts. The act of the police here is akin to a litigant self-helping the court to enforce its order.
The irony in this case is glaring. The Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) is both the applicant that sought the restraining order and the actor now attempting to enforce it through the Nigeria Police Force — an agency under its own control — against the respondent to that same order, Omoyele Sowore. That is not law; it is self-help, pure and simple. The principle is clear: once a court has issued an order, only the court retains the authority to enforce it. The applicant cannot take the law into its own hands by deploying the police against the respondent. This is a violation of due process and an affront to judicial authority.
In UMEKWE & ANOR v. TASIE & ORS (2021) LPELR-55487(CA), the Court of Appeal was emphatic that:
“The Appellants being no strangers to land litigation, should have known that one does not enforce the perceived violation of an order of injunction in respect of land or indeed any matter by using or involving the Police in the enforcement of such violation except pursuant to an order of a Court of competent jurisdiction finding the violation established which is a long way of saying that one first has to originate a contempt proceeding and which has to end in his favour before the majesty of the law invites the Police into the matter, for enforcement.”
This pronouncement perfectly captures the legal aberration in Sowore’s arrest. The FRN, if it believed there was a breach of the injunction, ought to have approached the court for committal proceedings and allowed the judicial process to take its full course. Anything short of that is illegality wrapped in impunity.
To make matters worse, the order being relied upon was itself obtained in breach of the Federal High Court Rules. Order 26 Rule 7(3) clearly provides that no ex parte application shall be made unless accompanied by a motion on notice. The applicant in FRN v. Sowore failed to comply with this provision but rushed to court to obtain an order to gag the people. Such an order, never served on the respondents, should not even form the basis of any valid contempt proceeding, much less a police arrest.
Moreover, away from the unlawful arrest of Sowore, it is condemnable that the state now resorts to court orders as instruments of restraint against citizens. No government should ever seek to silence the people through injunctions that muzzle their democratic right to peaceful assembly. The right to protest is not a privilege extended by authority but a civic liberty flowing from citizenship itself. To weaponize judicial orders against public expression is to turn the courts into tools of oppression and to mock the very spirit of democracy. When court orders are used to gag citizens and the police are permitted to enforce civil contempt, the nation crosses from constitutional order into executive tyranny.
In all, the arrest and continued detention of Omoyele Sowore remain unlawful, unconstitutional, and indefensible. The police have no role in enforcing civil contempt. What happened on October 23 was not an act of justice; it was a desecration of due process in open daylight.
Omoyele Sowore must be released immediately and unconditionally. This is not an appeal to mercy; it is a demand of law and conscience
Olatunde Olayinka is a public interest lawyer at Tope Temokun Chambers, Lagos.