The unlawful arrest of Barrister Aloy Ejimakor, Prince Emmanuel Kanu, and others linked to the peaceful protest for the release of Nnamdi Kanu once again exposes the rot, recklessness, and deep authoritarian streak that defines Nigeria’s law enforcement institutions. In a nation where the constitution supposedly guarantees fair hearing, the police and the Attorney-General’s office have chosen to trample the very laws they swore to uphold.
Human rights activist Omoyele Sowore confirmed the arrests, describing how police officers deployed against demonstrators brutalised citizens whose only offence was demanding compliance with existing court orders. Ejimakor, who serves as counsel to the detained IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, was arrested alongside Kanu’s brother and other peaceful protesters. Before being taken away, Ejimakor managed to post that they were held at the FCT Command CID in Garki, Abuja — a post that quickly drew public outrage.
Their senior lawyer, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume, SAN, denounced the arrests as an act of intimidation designed to cripple the defence in Kanu’s ongoing case. Ume reminded the authorities that arresting a defence lawyer or witness violates not only the Nigerian Constitution but also international legal standards, including the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers. These principles insist that lawyers must be free to perform their duties without harassment or interference — a concept that seems alien to Nigeria’s repressive security apparatus.
The petition filed by Ume was scathing. It accused the Nigeria Police Force and the Attorney-General’s office of contempt of court and deliberate obstruction of justice. It argued that detaining legal representatives and witnesses mid-trial sabotages the judicial process and undermines Section 36 of the Constitution, which guarantees a defendant’s right to counsel and witnesses of choice. The continued detention of these individuals, according to Ume, represents a gross usurpation of judicial authority and a flagrant violation of Nigeria’s international obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Such arrests reflect a pattern of systemic lawlessness that has come to define Nigeria’s governance structure. The police, instead of serving as an instrument of justice, have become tools of intimidation — deployed not to uphold order but to protect political interests. The Attorney-General’s silence, in the face of such blatant violations, only reinforces the perception that the Nigerian state operates above its own laws.
Nigeria’s rulers speak endlessly of democracy, yet they preside over a system that punishes lawyers for defending their clients and jails citizens for demanding justice. This latest assault on due process is not merely a legal infraction; it is a public declaration that in Nigeria, the rule of law exists only on paper. The continued detention of Ejimakor and Prince Kanu is a stain on whatever remains of the country’s judicial integrity — and a grim reminder that under Nigeria’s corrupt and decaying order, justice has no defenders left.
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