Two Nigerian men have regained their freedom after spending nearly four years in custody, following a Lagos court’s decision to discharge and acquit them after the prosecution failed to call a single witness or present evidence against them.
The men, who were arrested in 2022 and detained at the Medium Security Correctional Centre in Lagos, were eventually released after the court upheld a No Case Submission filed by lawyers representing them pro bono.
Legal advocacy organisation Citizen Gavel announced the development on September 28, 2026, saying its legal team discovered the men during a prison visitation in January 2024.
According to the organisation, one of the men had allegedly been arrested because the slippers he was wearing resembled those belonging to a complainant.
The second man was reportedly arrested during a random police raid while he was hawking.
Despite their prolonged detention, Citizen Gavel said neither man had been taken to court when its lawyers encountered them in 2024.
The organisation subsequently took up both cases without charge and began tracking their files through the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The lawyers first appeared before Justice Coker in March 2024. However, over more than seven subsequent hearings, the prosecution failed to produce a single witness.
Applications seeking to strike out the cases were reportedly followed by repeated adjournments, leaving the defendants in custody as the proceedings dragged on.
In early 2025, the cases were transferred to the court of Justice Oshodi. The men appeared before the court for the first time in March 2025 and pleaded not guilty.
The prosecution later closed its case without presenting evidence establishing a case against either defendant.
Their lawyers subsequently filed a No Case Submission, arguing that the prosecution had failed to provide sufficient evidence requiring the men to enter a defence.
The court upheld the submission, discharged and acquitted both men and ordered that they be released.
Citizen Gavel said that during the nearly four years the men spent in custody, no family member of either defendant appeared in court and neither man had another lawyer representing him.
The organisation said their cases highlighted broader concerns about prolonged pre-trial detention, weak investigations and abandoned or delayed prosecutions within Nigeria’s criminal justice system.
Citizen Gavel, which has secured the release of other detainees through similar legal interventions, said the two men had “endured years in custody largely unseen and unheard.”
After almost four years behind bars, both men are now free, having ultimately been discharged and acquitted after the prosecution failed to produce evidence sufficient to make them answer a case.
Shola Akinyele
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