The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has dismissed an appeal by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and affirmed the judgment declaring unlawful the detention of former Nigerian Bar Association Vice-President, Dr. Monday Onyekachi Ubani, SAN, for 21 days after a suspect for whom he stood surety could not be produced.
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A three-member panel of the appellate court unanimously upheld the ₦12 million damages earlier awarded against the EFCC by the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory and further ordered the Commission to pay ₦300,000 as costs, bringing the total monetary liability arising from the judgment to ₦12.3 million.
The judgment, delivered on Thursday, October 15, 2026, brought the appellate challenge to an end more than seven years after Ubani’s detention in March 2019 and almost five years after the trial court found the detention unlawful.
The EFCC had challenged the lower court’s decision on two principal grounds the jurisdiction of the court that entertained Ubani’s fundamental rights action and the amount of damages awarded against the Commission.
The Court of Appeal rejected both grounds and affirmed the judgment of the High Court.
At the centre of the dispute was an important distinction in bail and surety law: whether a person who stands surety for another can be arrested and detained simply because the person granted bail cannot subsequently be produced.
The investigation that led to the dispute did not concern Ubani personally. It related to allegations of financial crime arising from the tenure of Mrs. Ngozi Olejeme as Chairperson of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund.
The EFCC had declared Olejeme wanted. Ubani maintained that he subsequently assisted in persuading her to return to Nigeria to answer the allegations against her.
She was later granted administrative bail by the Commission, with Ubani and former Senator Christopher Enai standing as sureties.
By standing surety, both men undertook to ensure her compliance with the conditions attached to her release, including her appearance whenever required by the Commission.
The EFCC subsequently said it could no longer reach Olejeme and demanded that the sureties produce her.
Ubani’s account was that she disappeared after EFCC operatives visited her residence. That version formed part of his account of the events but was not established as a judicial finding in the materials forming the basis of the report.
On March 19, 2019, the EFCC arrested Ubani and Enai after they failed to produce Olejeme.
While contemporaneous reports described Ubani’s detention as lasting about 20 days, accounts of the Court of Appeal proceedings put the period at 21 days. What was not in dispute was that his detention resulted from his inability to produce the person for whom he had stood surety.
Ubani maintained throughout the dispute that his role as surety did not make him criminally responsible for Olejeme’s disappearance and could not justify detaining him in her place.
As the detention continued, Justice Sylvanus Oriji of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, sitting at Apo, directed the EFCC either to charge Ubani and Enai to court or release them and granted them bail on stated conditions.
The dispute subsequently expanded when their counsel, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, commenced contempt proceedings against the then Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, over the Commission’s alleged failure to comply with the court’s directive within the stipulated period.
That aspect of the matter raised a separate rule-of-law question from the legality of the original detention. While the fundamental rights proceedings concerned whether the sureties could lawfully be detained because the principal suspect was unavailable, the subsequent dispute concerned obedience to a subsisting court order.
Section 287(3) of the 1999 Constitution provides for the enforcement of decisions of the Federal High Court, High Courts and other courts to which the subsection applies by all authorities and persons in Nigeria.
Ubani subsequently instituted a fundamental rights enforcement action at the FCT High Court, seeking ₦5 billion in exemplary and aggravated damages over his arrest and detention.
Justice Oriji, in January 2022, entered judgment in his favour.
The court held that Ubani’s arrest and detention were unlawful and constituted a violation of his fundamental rights. It awarded him ₦12 million in damages but declined his request for an order compelling the EFCC to publish a public apology.
The legal distinction underlying the case is between enforcing the obligation undertaken by a surety and treating the surety as though he were the suspect for whom bail was granted.
Where a surety fails to produce a person released on bail, the law provides mechanisms through which the undertaking or recognisance may be enforced, including proceedings requiring the surety to show cause and, where applicable, forfeiture of the bond.
The failure to produce the principal does not, without an independent lawful basis, automatically convert the surety into the accused person or authorise his detention as a substitute for the person granted bail.
It was against the High Court judgment that the EFCC approached the Court of Appeal, questioning both the jurisdiction of the trial court and the ₦12 million damages.
The appellate court unanimously dismissed the appeal, upheld the trial court’s decision and sustained the ₦12 million award.
It additionally awarded ₦300,000 in costs against the EFCC.
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