OPINION] When Obedience Becomes Oppression: The Arrest of Sowore, the Court Order, and the Fragility of Freedom

By Peter Adebare Adekeye

On Thursday, October 23, 2025, the Nigerian public woke once again to a familiar headline “Police arrest Sowore in court.” It was no ordinary arrest. It was the spectacle of state power confronting conscience, the law colliding with liberty, and justice standing awkwardly between them.

According to the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Benjamin Hundeyin, Omoyele Sowore human rights activist, journalist, and presidential candidate was arrested for allegedly leading protesters into a “restricted area in Abuja” in defiance of a subsisting court order. On the surface, this sounds simple: a court had made an order, and Sowore allegedly disobeyed it. But beneath that simplicity lies a legal paradox that cuts to the soul of constitutional democracy: when does disobedience of a court order cross from civil contempt into criminality and when does the state’s enforcement cross from lawfulness into repression?

The Thin Line Between Contempt and Crime

At common law, the disobedience of a court order constitutes contempt of court — a sui generis remedy designed to preserve the authority of the judiciary, not to serve as a weapon of executive punishment. As Lord Denning MR once observed in Attorney-General v. Times Newspapers Ltd (1974) AC 273, “The power to punish for contempt is not given for the protection of judges as individuals but for the maintenance of the authority of the law itself.”

In Nigeria, this principle finds root in Section 6(6)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, which vests judicial powers in the courts, and in the inherent jurisdiction of every superior court to enforce its orders. The usual consequence of disobedience is committal for contempt a civil or quasi-criminal proceeding, not a police arrest or criminal charge, except where the conduct also constitutes a distinct criminal offence under statute.

This distinction is not academic it is constitutional. In Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee v. Chief Gani Fawehinmi (No. 1) (1989) 2 NWLR (Pt. 105) 558, the Supreme Court emphasized that the judiciary alone retains the power to punish for contempt committed against its authority, not the executive arm or the police. Thus, when the police arrest citizens for “violating a court order,” they risk crossing into judicial territory, unless their action is grounded in a separate criminal provision.

The Contours of Criminality: When a Breach Becomes an Offence

The police justification here rests on an alleged breach of a “restriction order.” But we must ask: Was the order itself a judicial pronouncement, or a police/administrative directive cloaked in legal language?

If it was indeed a court order, its breach should trigger contempt proceedings before that court. If it was an executive restriction order, it must be tested against constitutional guarantees particularly Sections 39, 40, and 41 of the 1999 Constitution, which safeguard freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and movement.

Even where a court order exists, mere disobedience does not automatically translate into a crime. It only becomes criminal when it satisfies the ingredients of offences such as unlawful assembly, public nuisance, incitement, or obstruction of public officers as provided under Sections 69–71 and 104 of the Penal Code (Northern States) or Sections 68–76 of the Criminal Code Act.

In Inspector-General of Police v. ANPP (2007) 18 NWLR (Pt. 1066) 457, the Court of Appeal decisively held that the Police Act cannot be used to suppress citizens’ right to peaceful protest, ruling that the requirement of police permit for rallies was inconsistent with Section 40 of the Constitution. Galadima JCA (as he then was) declared:

“It is the right of every Nigerian to assemble freely and protest peacefully; the police have no power to stop it under the guise of maintaining public order.

This decision stands as a constitutional sword against the misuse of “order” to smother dissent. It reinforces that law and order cannot be achieved by lawlessness and that a democracy that fears peaceful protest is already breeding rebellion.

The Arrest of a Conscience: Sowore and the Criminalization of Dissent

Sowore’s arrest, therefore, must be interrogated beyond legality it must be examined in the context of Nigeria’s troubled relationship with dissent.

He stands accused of leading protesters into a “restricted area” but restricted by whom, and under what lawful authority? If the restriction flows from a court order, the proper remedy lies in judicial contempt proceedings, not criminal prosecution. The Supreme Court in Ezenwa v. Bestway Electronics Mfg. Co. Ltd (1999) 9 NWLR (Pt. 619) 512 made it clear that the court whose order is breached retains the exclusive jurisdiction to determine and punish such contempt.

But if the police acted on an executive directive, then the legality must be measured against the fundamental rights provisions of the Constitution. Nigeria is not a police state. Section 1(1) of the 1999 Constitution declares the Constitution to be supreme; and any law or act inconsistent with it is void to the extent of that inconsistency.

The continuing arrests of peaceful protesters whether in the name of “security,” “court order,” or “public order” thus raise the specter of executive overreach and the slow erosion of civic space. When obedience to state directives becomes a substitute for obedience to justice, the law loses its soul.

Conclusion: Between the Gavel and the Gun

The arrest of Omoyele Sowore reopens an uncomfortable question about the character of justice in Nigeria. Can the state criminalize a civil contempt without usurping judicial power? Can an activist’s peaceful disobedience to an unjust order be treated as crime without undermining the rule of law itself?

In the words of Justice Niki Tobi (JSC) in A.G. Lagos State v. A.G. Federation (2003) 12 NWLR (Pt. 833) 1:

> “Ours is a government of laws and not of men. When the law bows to power, anarchy walks in through the door.”

If the police must arrest, let them do so within the boundaries of law; if the court must command, let it do so without surrendering its dignity to executive hands. For the survival of liberty depends not on the might of the state, but on the courage of citizens and the conscience of justice.

Until freedom ceases to be a privilege and becomes the ordinary right of all Nigerians, the struggle continues not in violence, but in truth, in protest, and in law.

About the Author:
Peter Adebare Adekeye is a legal analyst, human rights advocate, and Chief Media Specialist of the Law Students Association of Nigeria (LAWSAN), North-West Zone. He writes passionately on justice, governance, and constitutionalism.