February 26, 2026

LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-HELP IN NIGERIA: THE ULTIMATE THING TO KNOW

by Ekosolicitors

Introduction to the Legal Implications of Self-help

Silas had been Bola’s tenant for three years in a modest flat in Surulere, Lagos. When their relationship soured over unpaid rent, Bola — frustrated and impatient — decided she had waited long enough. One Saturday morning, while Silas was at the market, she enlisted the help of her brother Tunde and two others. They broke the padlock, moved his belongings to the street, and changed the locks. By the time Silas returned, he was homeless. Bola believed she was simply reclaiming what was hers. Her actions had exposed her to criminal liability which she doesnot know, and that the law had a word for what she did — self-help — and it had no tolerance for it.

The relationship between a landlord and a tenant is one governed by law, and when disputes arise within that relationship, the law prescribes specific channels through which such disputes must be resolved. However, it is not uncommon for landlords — and sometimes even governmental authorities — to bypass these legal channels and resort to self-help: taking unilateral action to evict tenants, demolish structures, or otherwise enforce perceived rights without recourse to a court of law. This article examines the concept of self-help in the context of property law, with particular reference to the Tenancy Law of Lagos State, 2011, and relevant judicial authorities that have firmly established the illegality of such conduct under Nigeria’s constitutional democracy.

Legal Implications of Self-help: The Statutory Prohibition

The legislature has been unambiguous in its condemnation of self-help in landlord-tenant relations. Section 44(1) of the Tenancy Law of Lagos State, 2011 provides that any person who demolishes, alters, or modifies a building to which the law applies with a view to ejecting a tenant without court approval, or who attempts to forcibly eject or forcibly ejects a tenant, threatens or molests a tenant by action or words with a view to ejecting such tenant, or willfully damages any premises, shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (₦250,000.00) or a maximum of six months imprisonment and any other non-custodial disposition. This provision is significant for several reasons.

First, it criminalises the conduct rather than merely treating it as a civil wrong, signalling the seriousness with which the legislature views extrajudicial evictions. Second, it draws no distinction between a landlord acting out of genuine frustration and one acting with malicious intent — the act itself is the offence. The statute therefore creates a clear and firm boundary: no matter how legitimate a landlord’s grievance may be, the remedy must be sought through the courts and not through personal action.

Legal Implications of Self-help: Judicial Condemnation

The courts have been equally firm in their rejection of self-help as a legitimate means of resolving property disputes. In the landmark case of Governor of Lagos State v. Ojukwu (1986) 1 NWLR (Pt. 18) 621, the Supreme Court examined the very concept that lies at the heart of this discussion. Per Oputa, J.S.C., the court noted that in Black’s Law Dictionary (5th Edition), self-help is defined as “taking an action in person or by a representative with legal consequences, whether the action is legal or not; for example, a ‘self-help eviction’ may be a landlord’s removing the tenant’s property from an apartment and locking the door against the tenant.”

The court’s engagement with this definition was not merely academic — it was a deliberate framing of the issue to expose the dangerous normalisation of self-help and to signal that such conduct, even when dressed in the language of property rights, remains legally indefensible.

DECIDED CASES ON THE LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-HELP

Building on this foundation, the court in Friday v. Governor of Ondo State (2022) 16 NWLR (Pt. 1857) 585 went further, holding that “self-help is illegal under the rule of law” and that “one of the basic requirements of the rule of law is that all authorities and persons must submit the resolution of their disputes to the due process of law and not adopt self-help or other methods contrary to law to resolve such disputes.” What is particularly instructive about this pronouncement is that it extends the prohibition beyond private individuals to all authorities — meaning that even government bodies are not immune from this principle.

Finally, in Okochi v. Animkwoi (2003) 18 NWLR (Pt. 851) 1, the court reinforced this position with characteristic clarity, declaring that “self-help has no place in the civilised world as it is clearly against the rule of law in a democracy” and that “it is improper that a court of law should give its approval or lend its credence to an act or conduct of self-help.” This statement is noteworthy not only for its condemnation of the act itself but for its rebuke of any judicial body that might, even inadvertently, validate such conduct.

Conclusion

The law is clear, and the courts have spoken consistently: self-help in property disputes is not merely frowned upon — it is illegal, criminal, and antithetical to the rule of law. The Tenancy Law of Lagos State, 2011 provides a statutory framework that protects tenants from arbitrary and extrajudicial eviction, while the judiciary has reinforced this protection through a body of case law that leaves little room for ambiguity.

For landlords like the fictional Bola, the temptation to act swiftly and decisively in the face of a difficult tenant is understandable, but the law demands patience and process. Every grievance has a legal remedy, and every legal remedy has a prescribed procedure. To deviate from that procedure — however justified one may feel — is to place oneself on the wrong side of the law. In a democracy governed by the rule of law, the courthouse, and not the street, is where property disputes must be resolved.

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