Cost of criminalising civil disputes by police, by Remi Ladigbolu 

by · The Eagle Online

The judgment itself was unequivocal. A Federal High Court in Lagos held that the constitutional right to life of a young medical sales representative had been violated after he died in police custody. The court awarded N100 million in damages against the Police Service Commission (PSC), Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Lagos State Commissioner of Police, a senior police officer, and a pharmaceutical company whose complaint had culminated in the deceased’s arrest.

Yet the significance of Justice Ibrahim Ahmad Kala’s decision extends far beyond the compensation awarded to the family of Omokhinyema Okubo, the son of a retired Commissioner of Police. It is the latest judicial reminder of an issue that has repeatedly confronted Nigeria’s criminal justice system: The use of the coercive powers of the police in disputes that properly belong before the civil courts.

The case raises difficult but necessary questions. At what point does an employment disagreement become a criminal investigation? When should the police decline a complaint because the dispute is contractual rather than criminal? And what responsibility do complainants bear when the machinery of criminal justice is invoked to pursue what is essentially a private grievance?

These are questions Nigerian courts have grappled with for decades.

According to the evidence accepted by the court, Okubo, an employee of Exus Pharmaceutical (Nig.) Ltd, was invited to the company’s Lagos office in July 2023 over an alleged shortfall in sales proceeds before being handed over to police officers. 

His father, retired Commissioner of Police Okubo Aboye Odogu, subsequently alleged that his son was detained, tortured, denied food, and medical attention and later died in police custody at Ketu-Epe Police Station.

While Exus Pharmaceutical and one of its officials challenged the suit on procedural grounds, the police authorities neither filed a defence nor appeared to contest the allegations during the proceedings. 

Justice Kala held that the evidence established that the deceased died while in police custody and that the respondents failed to justify the circumstances surrounding his death.

Perhaps the most consequential aspect of the judgment was not the amount awarded but the court’s treatment of the dispute that preceded the arrest.

Justice Kala found that the company should have pursued available contractual remedies rather than involving the police in what the court characterised as a civil debt dispute. The court further held that the company and its manager actively participated in the arrest and detention of the deceased and were therefore jointly liable alongside the police authorities.

That finding reflects a principle that has become firmly established in Nigerian jurisprudence.

For more than two decades, appellate courts have consistently held that the constitutional and statutory powers of the police do not extend to acting as debt collectors or enforcing private contractual obligations. The courts have repeatedly warned that criminal process must not be used as an instrument of commercial pressure where no identifiable criminal offence is disclosed.

Among the authorities frequently cited is McLaren v. Jennings, in which the Court of Appeal reaffirmed that the police have no legal mandate to recover debts or resolve purely civil disputes. Similar principles have been reiterated in decisions such as Oceanic Securities International Ltd v. Balogun and other appellate authorities dealing with the misuse of police powers in commercial disagreements.

The courts have never suggested that employers are precluded from reporting genuine criminal conduct to the police. Allegations of stealing, fraud, forgery, obtaining by false pretences or criminal breach of trust remain matters properly investigated by law enforcement agencies where credible facts disclose the commission of an offence.

What the courts have consistently discouraged is the tendency to present ordinary contractual disagreements, debt claims, or employment disputes as criminal matters simply because criminal investigation appears quicker or more coercive than civil litigation.

Every arrest immediately engages fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution, including the rights to dignity, personal liberty and fair hearing. 

Once an individual is taken into lawful custody, the State assumes responsibility for that person’s safety, welfare, and wellbeing.

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That responsibility does not diminish because the person is under investigation.

Justice Kala’s judgment was particularly critical of what occurred after the deceased entered police custody. The court noted the absence of evidence of a proper criminal investigation into the death, a coroner’s inquest, or credible autopsy findings capable of explaining how a person taken into custody alive subsequently died while under the control of law enforcement officers.

Those observations echo earlier judicial pronouncements.

In previous custody death cases, Nigerian courts have emphasised that where a person enters police custody alive but later dies, the authorities bear a legal obligation to provide a credible explanation for the death. Failure to do so may attract civil liability for breach of the constitutional right to life.

The judgment therefore speaks to two distinct issues. The first concerns accountability for deaths occurring in State custody. The second concerns the increasing legal exposure faced not only by law enforcement agencies but also by private complainants who instigate police intervention in disputes that may ultimately be found to be civil in nature.

In recent years, Nigerian courts have shown a growing willingness to impose liability on complainants where evidence establishes that they actively procured unlawful arrest, detention or other violations of fundamental rights. The rationale is straightforward. A private citizen cannot escape responsibility where he or she knowingly sets in motion an unlawful process that results in the infringement of another person’s constitutional rights.

This development carries important implications for employers and businesses.

Internal financial discrepancies, inventory shortages and contractual disagreements often require careful legal assessment before any report is made to law enforcement agencies. Where the facts disclose criminality, the police have both the authority and the duty to investigate. Where they do not, civil remedies remain the appropriate course.

Equally significant is the responsibility resting on police officers themselves.

The Police Act defines the functions of the Nigeria Police Force in relation to crime prevention, investigation, law enforcement and public safety. Courts have consistently interpreted those statutory powers as excluding the enforcement of private contracts or the recovery of debts between citizens.

Justice Ibrahim Ahmad Kala’s judgment will almost certainly be remembered for the N100 million damages awarded to the family of Omokhinyema Okubo. Its lasting significance, however, may lie elsewhere. It reinforces a constitutional principle that Nigerian courts have affirmed repeatedly for decades that the coercive powers of the State must be exercised only for the prevention and investigation of crime, never as a substitute for lawful civil process.

. Ladigbolu is a Lagos-based journalist.

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