The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s challenge to a judgment declaring the detention of former Nigerian Bar Association Vice-President Monday Onyekachi Ubani, SAN, unlawful, leaving the commission liable for ₦12.3 million in damages and costs.
A three-member panel unanimously upheld the decision of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, which had awarded Ubani ₦12 million over his detention for 21 days in 2019. The appellate court also awarded ₦300,000 in costs against the EFCC.
The ruling, delivered on October 15 and reported on October 18, brings the commission’s appeal against the damages judgment to an end. The dispute arose after Ubani was detained because a woman for whom he had stood surety could not be produced when required by investigators.
How the dispute began
The underlying investigation concerned allegations of financial crime connected with the tenure of Ngozi Olejeme as chairperson of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund.
Ubani and former Senator Christopher Enai had stood as sureties for Olejeme after she was granted administrative bail by the EFCC.
The commission later said it could no longer reach Olejeme and demanded that the sureties produce her. Ubani maintained that he had helped persuade her to return to Nigeria to answer the allegations but could not control her subsequent whereabouts.
On March 19, 2019, the EFCC arrested Ubani and Enai after they failed to produce her.
The detention prompted a legal challenge over whether a surety could lawfully be detained in place of the person for whom bail had been granted.
High Court awarded ₦12 million
Ubani subsequently filed a fundamental rights enforcement action at the FCT High Court, seeking ₦5 billion in damages over his arrest and detention.
In January 2022, Justice Sylvanus Oriji ruled in his favour, finding the detention unlawful and awarding him ₦12 million in damages. The court, however, declined his request for an order compelling the EFCC to publish a public apology.
The commission appealed the judgment, challenging both the jurisdiction of the lower court and the amount awarded.
Appeal dismissed
The Court of Appeal rejected the EFCC’s arguments and affirmed the High Court’s judgment. The appellate panel upheld the ₦12 million damages award and added ₦300,000 in costs.
The dispute turns on the legal distinction between a surety’s undertaking to produce a person released on bail and the criminal liability of the person who stands surety.
A surety may face lawful procedures to enforce the terms of a recognisance where the person released on bail fails to appear. But the legal consequences of that undertaking are different from treating the surety as the suspect or automatically detaining the surety in the suspect’s place.
Ubani’s case centred on that distinction and on the lawfulness of the EFCC’s decision to detain him.
The appellate ruling reinforces the need for law-enforcement agencies to act within the limits of their statutory powers when enforcing bail conditions. It also concludes the EFCC’s challenge to the specific damages judgment in Ubani’s case.
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