A federal judge warned in Abuja on Tuesday that she could order the Chief of Army Staff to arrest the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kayode Egbetokun over his disobedience of a judgement.
To avert such a situation, the judge, Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja, offered Mr Egbetokun an option of an amicable resolution to ensure compliance with the said judgement.
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She issued the warning during a hearing in the contempt proceedings instituted by Nnenna Anozie, whose husband, John Anozie, was abducted by some police officers in June 2017.
The man has not been seen by his family members since his abduction in Lagos by police officers belonging to the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) more than eight years ago. The SARS operatives travelled from their base in Awkuzu in Anambra State to abduct Mr Anozie in Lagos in June 2017.
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Since then, his spouse, Mrs Anozie, has doggedly made the rounds of courts and the #EndSARS judicial panel of enquiry seeking answers to the questions regarding her husband’s disappearance.
In her quest for justice, she has obtained a series of rulings from different judges ordering her missing spouse to be produced and the police officers implicated over his disappearance to be held accountable.
The latest in the series of court orders was given by Mrs Nyako in September 2025, directing the IGP to produce the indicted officers and multiple case files connected with the case.
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But Mr Egbetokun and the police spurned the judgement, prompting Mrs Anozie to initiate contempt proceedings seeking to have Mr Egbetokun jailed for his alleged disobedience to the judgement.
The warning
At Tuesday’s hearing, Mrs Anozie’s lawyer, Vincent Adodo, chronicled the acts of disobedience of the police to court rulings regarding the case, leading to his filing of Forms 48 and 49, the court processes for initiating contempt proceedings. He told the judge that both filings had been served on the IGP.
“Despite the avalanche of evidence, the IGP refused to produce the perpetrators,” Mrs Anozie’s lawyer lamented to the court on top of his voice. He said the police could take the casefiles to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice for action.
He also told the court that his client, Mrs Anozie, who has sought justice since the 2017 incident, flew in from Lagos that morning for the case.
In response, IGP’s lawyer, Stanley Nwodo, said he had received only Form 48 and that there was confusion over the identities of the implicated police officers.
The judge interjected. “That is not the point because there is a judgment,” she said.
Signalling her resolve to take all necessary actions to see the matter through, the judge said he had no problem “granting the order to commit the IGP.” She said if she must do that “I will ask the Chief of Army Staff to arrest him. I will not ask the police.”
The police are primarily responsible for carrying out the arrest of a person adjudged to have violated a court order. But the judge must have opted to rather task the Army with the task in the case of the IGP as the violator due to the foreseeable lukewarmness the police may exhibit towards such a directive.
She then gave IGP’s lawyer two options: letting the contempt proceedings continue because “the IGP did not comply with the court order,” or having a meeting of parties in her chambers “to discuss how to resolve the problem and proffer a solution.” She said if the meeting option is adopted, it will be followed by a letter to communicating the resolutions reached to the Attorney General of the Federation
Mrs Anozie’s lawyer, however, told the court he feared such letters had previously gone to authorities several times.
But the judge responded immediately that she would be the one to write the letter. “There is a difference between when you write and when I write.”
She further explained that it was the better option as jailing the IGP might “not change anything or solve any problem, because they will never answer you thereafter.”
“We are not having a case; we are proffering a solution,” she added.
Mr Nwodo thought about the options for seconds and agreed that both parties should meet the judge in her chambers.
However, the judge instructed them to liaise with the court registrar to set a date for the meeting and adjourned the case until 23 April. By then, she said, they would have met in her chambers.
#EndSARS and John Anozie’s disappearance
PREMIUM TIMES, in a detailed report on the case, chronicled a long history of police disobedience to court orders regarding Mr Anozie’s disappearance and Mrs Anozie’s ordeal since the incident of the abduction of her husband by the police.
The officers implicated in the case are Anthony Obiozor Ikechukwu, an assistant superintendent of police; Uzochukwu Emeana, sergeant; John Eze, Oriole, also known as T Boy; and Sunday Okpe, a superintendent of police. Some of them were said to have retired from the police.
Mrs Anozie said the officers implicated in the case, who served in the defunct SARS in Awkuzu, Anambra State, “abducted” her husband at his home in Lekki, Lagos State, in June 2017.
Mr Anozie’s abduction and subsequent disappearance are an example of wide-ranging watrocities for which the defunct SARS became known across Nigeria. Over the decades, Nigerians suffered extortion, torture, extrajudicial killings, abduction, enforced disappearance, illegal seizure assets, among others, at the hands of the rogue police unit.
Their atrocities triggered the nationwide #EndSARS protests in October 2020. Police authorities disbanded the SARS unit in the wake of the protest while the federal and state governments agreed to set up judicial panels of enquiry to investigate cases of police brutality from across the country.
Mrs Anozie approached the panel in Abuja like thousands of Nigerians in Abuja and at least 29 of Nigeria’s 36 states. PREMIUM TIMES report on the matter shows Mrs Anozie’s case was inconclusive as the police failed to cooperate with the panel.
Motion seeking IGP’s arrest
Mrs Anozie had, in the motion filed on 11 December last year, accused Mr Egbetokun of disobeying the September 2025 court judgement that ordered the production of the officers involved in her husband’s abduction and disappearance.
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About a month after the court issued its orders and the IGP failed to act, Mrs Anozie, through her lawyer Mr Adodo, commenced contempt proceedings against the IGP, issuing Form 48 (Notice of Consequences of Disobedience to Court Order). A Form 48 warns an alleged contemnor to comply with a court judgment or face the consequences of disobedience.
When the police did not act, Mrs Anozie followed Form 48 with Form 49 (Notice of Committal to Correctional Centre), which requires alleged contemnors to explain to the judge why they should not be jailed for disobeying a court order.
An affidavit in support of the motion filed by Mrs Anozie’s lawyers in December said the IGP did not comply with the court judgement despite being served with both Form 48 and Form 49.
The police ignored all these orders, Mrs Anozie said in her motion, and called for the imprisonment of the IGP, who was a party to the case leading to the judgment and head of the police force.
The motion asked the court to commit “the IGP, Kayode Egbetokun, to Kuje prison in Abuja for contempt “until he purges himself of the contempt/disobedience of the order of this honourable court.”
However, the judge’s suggestion to change course in the proceedings on Tuesday may pause the contempt proceedings pending the outcome of the agreed meeting.
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