What are the odds of a butterfly flapping its wings in a small town in Lagos State on September 17, 2023, leading to the demotion of a judge some 850 kilometres away on January 6, 2025? Chaos theory, it is called.
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Chaos describes the case of Chioma Okoli, a Lagos resident whose Facebook comment on Erisco Foods Limited’s tomato paste drew the ire of the company’s founder and led to the police harassing and detaining her.
So fitting a word, it also describes how the same case saw Emmanuel Jatau, a Chief Magistrate in Nasarawa State, bag a demotion and have his magisterial powers stripped due to his illegal practices.
That January, the Nasarawa Judicial Service Commission (JSC) ruled that Jatau lacked jurisdiction to issue the orders he did in Okoli’s case. The next month, the JSC indefinitely barred magistrates from issuing three other types of orders. Flouting this decision would result in a dismissal, they said.
FIJ has now been granted one of these forbidden rulings. This time, it’s from an Abuja Area Court in Kubwa.
On July 7, FIJ obtained a court order with the signature of Magistrate Muhammed Sulyman Ola. This order mandates First Bank PLC to reverse a N300,000 erroneous transaction from customer Ayooluwa Oladiran’s bank account to the Sterling Bank account of FIJ Correspondent Daniel Ojukwu.
There were two problems with this ruling. On the one hand, the other party to the matter never received service of proceedings, and on the other, there was never a transaction to begin with, meaning the court relied on no evidence to grant a fictitious reversal.
But, before we got to this point, several sources had told FIJ about how easy it is to obtain court orders from lower courts.
“Anything you want the order to say, it will say,” one source told FIJ on condition of anonymity. “If you want to get an order to demolish a building, you can get it. The following week, you can get an order nullifying that demolition, and you don’t need to be in court to obtain it.”
FIJ saw this play out in June 2025.
COURT ORDER FOR SOMEONE ELSE
On June 23, 2025, an individual sent a message to this reporter on microblogging platform X. Her brother, a car salesman in Ogun State, was in his shop earlier in the month when a policeman visited to purchase a car worth N2.6 million.
This policeman had earlier spoken on the phone with someone he believed to be the owner of the dealership, so when he visited the place, he handed the phone to the salesman to speak with the person he thought was the owner.
Unknown to both of them, the person on the other end of the phone was a fraudster. Pretending to be the one who wanted to buy the car and referring to the policeman as a mechanic he sent to inspect it, the fraudster asked for the salesman’s account number.
Upon receiving it, he asked for the phone to be handed back to the policeman. The policeman then received another account number, into which he paid N1.4 million.
It was not until evening that the salesman realised the policeman had been duped.
A detention followed, and the only condition for the salesman’s release was the recovery of the money.
To do this, the salesman paid a lawyer to obtain a court order to place a lien on the fraudster’s bank account. This order, which he obtained from an Ogun State Magistrate Court, was questionable.
How does one whose bank account did not send or receive money get a court order for a transaction that involved two strangers? Chaos.
The salesman eventually paid the policeman out of his own pocket when the bank could not recover the money, and all parties chose not to pursue the matter further. At the time, Omolola Odutola, the spokesperson for the police in the state, visited the station and attempted to intervene, but the policemen still had their way. She also knew of the salesman’s innocence.
COURT REVIEWS ORDER ‘SAME DAY’ PALMPAY COMPLAINED ABOUT IT
At 7:15 am on June 20, 2025, a PalmPay customer posted screenshots of his conversation with the bank.
In one of the screenshots, the bank had told him at 5:51 am that a court order he sent to them earlier about an erroneous transfer was under review. This meant that they had not honoured it.
The customer would later reveal that he sent the court order to the bank on May 22, six days after his friend made the erroneous transfer. As was the case with the car salesman, he was not a party to the transaction, but a friend of his, who was supposed to send him N1,479,132, erroneously sent it to another PalmPay user.
This customer then got his lawyer to obtain a court order with the friend’s name as the applicant and PalmPay as a respondent.
The High Court of Nasarawa State granted the order and instructed PalmPay to return the money to this friend’s account.
After taking to social media with his complaints, PalmPay responded publicly at 1:11 pm, “Hello (name redacted). Thanks for reaching out to us. Apologies for the inconvenience. The court order is currently under review.
“Please note that it classifies the transaction as fraudulent, not erroneous. Kindly check your DM for more details.”
Lawyers FIJ spoke with at the time said no entity had the right to review a court order. They said the bank had to obey the order first, as every court order is valid regardless of how it is obtained.
Back on X, the PalmPay customer who complained earlier returned five days later to call out the bank again. He said, “Since yesterday, I have sent you a new court order which has corrected the ‘fraudulent’ to ‘erroneous’, and here you are ghosting again. Please, can you acknowledge and send me my money back?”
This new order, signed by Justice Ibrahim Shekarau, was dated June 20, the same day PalmPay told him they were reviewing his previous order.
The customer did not say how he managed to get a judge to reword his order or how he managed to get it on the same day that the bank told him they had issues with the wording.
He did, however, reveal to this reporter that he and the sender of the money worked and lived in the Ota area of Ogun State, and he did not know why his lawyer claimed the sender lived in Abuja.
With two different court orders emerging under questionable circumstances, FIJ sought answers.
Lawyers FIJ spoke with at the time explained, on condition of anonymity, that getting court orders from Lagos or Abuja high courts took time. They said some lawyers go to courts in Nasarawa State or lower courts in other states where there are fewer cases to get such orders.
One such questionable order was the warrant Jatau granted the police to arrest Okoli, a woman who had never been to the state. The same warrant led to his demotion.
Inibehe Effiong, Okoli’s lawyer, wrote to the JSC to probe the magistrate, and on January 6, the commission issued a statement announcing his demotion.
A month later, on February 13, the JSC issued another statement, stopping magistrates from issuing orders to freeze bank accounts, orders directing banks to pay funds and orders directing banks to provide financial information.
The directive reads, “Henceforth, all applications for bank orders shall be made to the High Court only.”
TESTING THE SYSTEM
During the period when all of these events were unfolding, this reporter was working with Ayo Oladiran, a freelance reporter and student, on Starved Behind Bars: The Nigerian Prison Story, a three-part investigative report and documentary.
They both discussed creating a fictional narrative of a transaction between them and exploring the possibility of a lawyer obtaining a court order reversing it.
What better place to start than in a state where the JSC had already threatened magistrates with dismissals?
For a while, FIJ spent time looking for lawyers who had helped obtain such orders in the past. When this reporter found one, the next step was to ensure the information was presented to him as objectively as possible. Would this lawyer be able to get a magistrate in Nasarawa to issue an order despite the JSC’s directive?
If he was going to cut corners, the idea would not come from this reporter. This was the goal.
One source, whom this lawyer had earlier helped obtain such an order, asked for anonymity for the lawyer.
This reporter told Hakeem Alabi (not real name), the lawyer, that he was attempting to send N30,000 to Oladiran when he mistakenly sent N300,000.
Alabi’s response was, “The best we can do is to get an order for reversal of fraudulent transfer.”
What FIJ explained to him was a case of erroneous transfer, but Alabi suggested a court order that says ‘fraudulent transfer’.
When FIJ told him that the police had claimed it was expensive — a claim several other lawyers said they had experienced with dealing with such cases in Lagos — he ignored it and simply said it would cost N50,000.
“I will send the details to fill out to you, and we work on it once you make a payment,” he said. “When it is ready, you take it to the woman’s bank. Her account will be put on hold, and if she has money in it, your money will be reversed to you.”
Alabi did not say where he would be getting the order from, but he, Oladiran and this reporter were all based in Lagos at the time of this exchange. The source who provided his phone number earlier told FIJ the order would likely come from Nasarawa.
On July 5, a few days after the salesman and the other individual on X revealed their experiences, FIJ sent the N50,000 to Alabi.
The lawyer said he would get it ready on Monday, July 7, but only after the court had finished sitting for the day.
“What time will I get it on Monday, please?” this reporter asked.
“Between 3 and 4, once the court concludes sitting, the judge will sign it,” he responded.
Two days later, this reporter sent a message to the lawyer at about 11:53 am.
“It will be ready before the end of the day,” came his response.
True to his word, he delivered the court order at 2:32 pm as a forwarded message. This one came from an area court in Abuja.
“Take it to the bank that requested it,” he said. “They will place a lien on the receiver’s account, then reverse the money in her account to you.”
Again, FIJ provided no transaction receipt, transaction history or statement of account to Alabi to show to the court that such a transaction occurred.
Oladiran, one of the respondents, received no service to say that Daniel Ojukwu was disputing a transfer, and the reporter did not provide any affidavit to back his claims to the lawyer.
For N50,000, a figure below Nigeria’s minimum wage, the lawyer provided a valid court order.
His previous words echoed when the order arrived: “Once the court concludes sitting, the judge will sign it.”
ENFORCEMENT
On October 22, after waiting and failing to see the court serve notice on Oladiran, FIJ visited a First Bank branch to submit the order.
There, a representative ran checks on her account and told FIJ that they could not find such a transaction in their system.
They, however, collected the document.
Truly, the account had not made such a transaction. The bank was right. By law, they still had to obey the order and place a lien on that amount in the specified bank account until the court was satisfied.
Six days after submitting the order, Oladiran made a N1,000 transfer from that account to her OPay account. The result — successful.
Despite the court order, the account remained active. Why?
‘ONLY HIGH COURTS CAN GIVE SUCH ORDERS’
On October 10, a federal high court in Lagos issued an order for banks in Nigeria to stop honouring account-freezing or post-no-debit orders issued by magistrates or other lower courts in the country.
Justice Ibrahim Kala, delivering judgment in a suit marked FHC/L/CS/07/2025, said only high courts can issue such orders.
This order was obtained after the police issued multiple ex parte orders to freeze businessman Aiman Mahfouz’s accounts at Fidelity Bank. The ex parte motions came from a Nasarawa magistrate court.
“Banks and financial institutions must not recognise ex parte orders obtained from magistrate, area, or customary courts seeking to restrict or reverse transactions on customers’ accounts,” the judge stated.
It was not the first time such an order would be given. On October 8, 2020, a federal high court in Abuja ruled that magistrates lacked the legal powers to issue such orders.
“A Magistrate lacks the powers to make bankers orders and/or order freezing or enabling a post no debit on bank accounts pursuant to non-existent/repealed section 7 of the Banker’s Order Act 1847,” Justice Inyang Ekwo said while delivering judgment in a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1635/2019.
Since Nasarawa’s JSC had taken action to stop its own magistrates, FIJ sent a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the commission on December 12, asking if the order had been lifted, if any magistrate had flouted it, and what mechanisms the JSC had put in place to ensure compliance.
At press time, seven days had elapsed, but the JSC had yet to respond.
Bernard Onigah, a lawyer practising in Lagos, explained to FIJ that obtaining the order we got, showed that there was a lapse in the system.
He said, “For any court to grant an order, it would have to see receipts of the transaction, an affidavit, and hear arguments from lawyers.
“To grant an ex parte, there has to be a motion on notice, then the ex parte is granted, so it can preserve the status quo until the superior suit is heard. You cannot just walk into a court, tell a story and get an order.”
FIJ’s investigation proves that, despite the high court rulings in 2020 and 2025, for the right price, anyone can get an order, because what are the odds that a reporter sends N50,000 to a lawyer in Lagos on Saturday, and gets a court order delivered to him via WhatsApp on Monday afternoon? Like in Okoli’s case — chaos.
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