‘Magistrate court can only try offences within its territorial jurisdiction’ — Lere Olayinka
A fresh legal question has emerged over the attempted arrest of Abdulazeez Adegbola, popularly known as Tani Olohun, in Ibadan, after a senior aide to Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike challenged the territorial reach of the court said to have issued the arrest warrant.
Lere Olayinka, Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication and Social Media to Wike, responded to an open letter on Facebook by Rahimat Junaid criticising the Oyo State Police Command for stopping officers from Kwara State who reportedly came to Ibadan to execute the warrant.
Olayinka wrote: “A magistrate court can only exercise criminal jurisdiction over offences committed within their designated magisterial district or territorial division.”
His intervention introduces a crucial legal issue into a dispute that had largely centred on whether Tani Olohun resisted arrest and whether the Oyo police were right to prevent the Kwara officers from taking him away.
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Territorial jurisdiction at the centre of dispute
Junaid, in her open letter to the Oyo State Police Command, questioned the decision to halt the Kwara officers. She maintained that a valid court order should be treated as a legal instrument rather than subjected to competing state-level interpretations.
She also faulted the reported resistance to arrest where she said allegations made against the Emir of Ilorin and the Mufti should be tested through evidence before a court.
“Let the court decide who is right or wrong. Let the police enforce lawful orders professionally. Let the accused defend themselves through the law, and let the person who made the allegations prove them through evidence,” she wrote.
But Olayinka’s brief intervention shifts attention to a different question: which court has the authority to issue and enforce a criminal process against a person located in another state?
The distinction matters because criminal jurisdiction is not simply determined by where an accused person happens to be found. The territorial competence of the court, the nature of the alleged offence, the terms of the warrant, and the procedure for executing such a process outside the issuing court’s territory can all become relevant
Arrest dispute takes legal turn
The controversy has therefore moved beyond the confrontation reportedly witnessed in Ibadan. It now touches on the limits of judicial authority, police powers, and inter-state enforcement of criminal processes.
Junaid has asked the Oyo command to clarify whether the Kwara court order was invalid, whether there was a legal impediment to its execution in Ibadan, or whether the complainants were required to commence proceedings in Oyo State.
Olayinka’s comment does not, by itself, answer all those questions. It instead points to territorial jurisdiction as a potentially decisive consideration.
The development places greater importance on the actual court order, the alleged offences, the court that issued the process, and the precise legal procedure followed by the police.
Until those details are established, both sides of the controversy risk presenting only part of the legal picture.
At this point, the dispute raises a straightforward question: can a criminal process issued by a court in one state be executed against a person in another state without satisfying the applicable jurisdictional and procedural requirements?
That is now the question the authorities and, ultimately, the courts may have to settle.
