*Alleges Police Officer Snatched My Phone, Went Through My WhatsApp Chats And Started Deleting Some Of Them
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An Abuja-based legal practitioner, Simon Eromosele, Esq., Principal Partner of Rocktrust Solicitors, has given an account of his arrest and detention by officers of the Nigeria Police Force at the Jabi office of Opay, where he had gone to follow up on a letter written on behalf of a client whose bank account had been restricted.
The lawyer set out the sequence of events in a written account titled “My Account Of The Events Leading To My Arrest By Officers Of The Nigeria Police Force At Opay Office, Jabi, Abuja.”
Eromosele said that in early July 2026 a client, Mr Jubril Muhammad Zayyan, engaged his services over accounts at Opay and First Bank which the client had found restricted, being unable to make withdrawals or use electronic channels.
“Upon perfecting the brief by paying my legal fees, I promptly wrote a letter dated 13th July, 2026 to Opay requesting them to furnish our Law Firm with a copy of the Court Order (if any) which empowered them to place restrictions on our client’s account,” he stated. “By the same letter, we also drew their attention to recent judgements of the Federal High Court to the effect that lower courts — Magistrates, Area and Customary Courts — have no jurisdiction to grant orders freezing or placing restrictions on bank accounts.”
He said no response was received from either bank, which prompted him to visit the Jabi office in person with the acknowledged copy of the letter.
“I Was Handcuffed At Opay Office”
According to his account, a customer service officer asked him to wait at the reception while the matter was escalated to the legal team.
“After about 45 minutes of waiting at the reception, I was accosted by a plain clothes Police Officer who brandished his identity card before me and announced that I was under arrest. I was handcuffed at Opay office and taken in a public taxi to Utako Police Station where I was taken to the office of the DPO,” he stated.
He said he identified himself. “I showed the DPO my NBA Unity Bar identity card, telling him that I’m a senior lawyer and I was just following up with a previous letter I wrote to Opay. The DPO said he has no power over the issue and that there is a pending investigation on the account by the Monitoring Unit at Police Force Headquarters, and that when I get there, I should explain myself to them.”
He continued: “I was taken to the counter where I was asked to take off my shoe, belt, trouser, shirt and all personal items, which was recorded, after which I was put in the cell.”
“You Must Produce The Suspect Before You Will Be Released”
After about an hour and thirty minutes in the cell, the lawyer said he was brought out, handcuffed again and driven to Force Headquarters, where his phone was confiscated and he was taken to the office of an officer he identified as DSP Adamu Bulangu of the Monitoring Unit.
“DSP Adamu Bulangu started barking at me, asking me on what basis am I writing a letter to Opay issuing threats to them on a matter that they are investigating, and he accused me of interfering with his investigation,” he stated.
He said he was left under watch for over an hour before the officer returned. “He brought out a statement form and asked me to write a statement explaining why I am interfering with police investigation. He said I must produce the suspect before I will be released.”
“He Started Deleting Some Of The Chats”
Eromosele said he asked to use his phone on the footing that it contained information he needed for the statement, and used the opportunity to alert colleagues.
“I utilised that window of opportunity to quickly and discreetly send out emergency messages to NBA Unity Bar EXCOs about my threatened incarceration,” he stated.
He continued: “When DSP Adamu Bulangu arrived back to his office and saw me chatting, he aggressively snatched my phone and started going through all my WhatsApp chats and accused me of reporting his name to other lawyers. He said he knows a lot of Senior Advocates and that the lawyers I am reaching out to cannot do anything for me. He immediately started deleting some of the chats I had sent out which were undelivered.”
Bar Intervention Refused, Then Transfer To SARS
Shortly after he wrote his statement, the lawyer said, the Publicity Secretary of the NBA Abuja Branch, Michael Ochili, Esq., arrived at the Monitoring Unit to request his release.
“The request was denied by DSP Adamu Bulangu and the CP of Monitoring Unit,” he stated.
He said he was then told he was being taken for an interview with the unit’s second-in-command. “Shockingly, I was handcuffed again and conveyed in the same white colour Honda vehicle and driven to SARS detention centre, where I was thrown into detention.”
Released At Night On Self-Recognisance
Eromosele said he remained in detention until nearly 10pm.
“I was called to come out, that there is an Order to bring me out. I was driven again by the same Officer in the same vehicle to Force Headquarters, but this time without handcuffs,” he stated.
“When I arrived, I met with several other colleagues who notified me of all the noble and aggressive efforts they have put up on my release. I was then released on self-recognisance and my impounded phone was released to me.”
The Letter That Preceded The Arrest
The letter, dated 13 July 2026 and addressed to the Branch Manager of Opay Microfinance Bank Limited, Jabi Head Office Branch, was headed as a demand for the immediate lifting of all restrictions on Account No. 8079922846 in the name of Jubril Muhammad Zayyan, and a request for a copy of the court order justifying the restrictions.
The firm stated that for over nine months the bank had imposed restrictions on the account, depriving the client of access to banking services and to his funds. It said repeated visits and complaints to the customer service team revealed that the restriction had been placed purportedly on the strength of a court order said to have been obtained from a District Court in Mararaba-Gurku, Nasarawa State, and that no copy had been furnished despite repeated demands.
On the law, the letter stated: “It is instructive to draw your attention to repeated judicial decisions from superior courts emphatically stating that lower Courts (Magistrate, Area and Customary Courts) do not have jurisdiction to issue Post No Debit Orders or to grant Orders for the freezing or restriction of Bank Accounts. Such powers can only be exercisable by the Federal High Court or the High Court of the FCT or the High Court of any State.”
It cited Chukwu Lincoln Ofolie v. Inspector General of Police & 6 Ors (unreported), Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/842/2025, per Nyako, J., delivered on 2 April 2026, and Aiman Mahfauz v. Fidelity Bank Plc (unreported), Suit No. FHC/L/CS/07/2025.
The firm demanded a copy of the purported order, stating that failure to produce it “will render your Bank legally complicit and liable for the violations of our client’s fundamental rights by depriving him of access to his legitimate funds,” and added that it trusted the request would be treated with urgency “to avoid unnecessary escalations and/or Court actions against your Bank.”
Stripped to its essentials, the account describes a lawyer arrested for doing the one thing a lawyer is engaged to do: write to an institution on a client’s behalf and ask it to produce the legal authority for an act affecting the client’s rights. If the account is accurate, three distinct problems arise.
The first goes to the letter itself. A demand for a copy of a court order is not interference with a police investigation. It is a request for a document that, if it exists, is a public record of a judicial act, and the bank’s own customers are entitled to know the basis on which their funds have been immobilised for nine months. Section 37 of the Legal Practitioners Act protects a legal practitioner acting in the discharge of professional duty, and the Rules of Professional Conduct oblige him to pursue his client’s cause. A demand letter that cites two Federal High Court decisions is advocacy, not obstruction.
The second is the demand attributed to the investigating officer that the lawyer produce his client before he would be released. A legal practitioner is not a surety for his client’s attendance, and using detention to compel a lawyer to deliver up the person he represents strikes directly at the confidence on which the relationship rests. It also engages the constitutional protection against being detained otherwise than in accordance with law.
The third is the sequence of detention itself: stripped and cell-held at a divisional station, transferred to Force Headquarters, refused release when an officer of the NBA Abuja Branch attended, then moved to a SARS facility before release at night on self-recognisance without any charge. Section 35 of the Constitution and the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 govern arrest, the recording of arrests and the treatment of persons in custody. The alleged seizure of the lawyer’s phone and deletion of messages he had sent seeking assistance, if established, would be a separate and more serious matter, going to the destruction of evidence and the obstruction of a detainee’s access to counsel.
Underlying all of it is the substantive question the letter raised and which remains unanswered: whether any court order exists at all, and if so, which court made it. That question is now considerably larger than one account at one bank, because the Federal High Court decisions cited in the letter address a practice restriction orders issued by courts without jurisdiction to make them that affects account holders across the country.
Editorial notes: This is a one-sided account, and it names a serving police officer and alleges misconduct against him. Before publication, seek responses from the Force Public Relations Officer, from the Monitoring Unit of the Force Headquarters, from DSP Adamu Bulangu by name, and from Opay Microfinance Bank Limited on whether it invited or requested the police intervention. Contact Michael Ochili, Esq., and the NBA Abuja Branch and Unity Bar to confirm the intervention. Verify both case citations at the Federal High Court registries, since one appears in the letter as “Aiman vs. Mahfauz vs. Fidelity Bank Plc,” which reads as a single party name garbled. Consider whether the client’s full account number needs to be published; the story works without it. Finally, ask the NBA whether it has taken up the matter formally, as the arrest of a practitioner in the course of professional duty ordinarily attracts a branch or national response.
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