THE Court of Appeal in Abuja has upheld a judgment of a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court awarding N85 million against Zenith Bank and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) for unlawfully freezing a customer’s account based on an invalid court order.
News Point Nigeria reports that in a unanimous judgment delivered on Monday, a three-member panel of the appellate court, led by Justice Adebukola Banjoko, dismissed Zenith Bank’s appeal, holding that it lacked merit.
The appellate court affirmed the July 16, 2025 judgment delivered by S.U. Bature, a judge of the FCT High Court, which awarded N60 million in general damages and N25 million as costs against the bank and the NPF, jointly and severally.
The suit originated from an action filed by Paulyn Abhulimen, on behalf of her law firm, Abhulimen & Co, after its account with Zenith Bank was frozen in 2024.
Abhulimen told the trial court that the restriction was discovered after she was unable to access the account or carry out transactions.
According to her, an official of the bank, Obi Okafor, later informed her that Zenith Bank had placed a ‘post no debit (PND)’ on the account on March 13, 2024, relying on an ex parte order obtained by the NPF from a Chief Magistrate’s Court in Mararaba Gurku, Nasarawa State.
The case was filed as FCT/HC/CV/2194/2024, with Zenith Bank and the NPF listed as defendants.
In the judgment affirmed by the Court of Appeal, the trial judge held that the magistrate’s court lacked both the territorial and substantive jurisdiction to order the freezing of the account.
“The rationale behind seeking the said order at a magistrate court under the Nasarawa state jurisdiction cannot be understood,” the judge said.
“The said magistrate court lacked the territorial jurisdiction to entertain the application.
“From the foregoing, it is clear that magistrate courts lack the jurisdiction to entertain an application for an order to freeze a bank account of a person and should not have entertained the said application in its entirety.
“The legal department of the first defendant (Zenith Bank), being lawyers, should have been aware of this position of the law and taken the appropriate action in this situation, as they ought not to have obeyed the court order in the first place.
“Thus, the first defendant was wrong to have placed a PND on the account of the claimant based on the order of a court lacking the requisite jurisdiction to do so. I so hold.”
The trial judge also held that the bank was negligent for failing to notify its customer before freezing the account.
“The first defendant owed the claimant a duty of care of duly informing her that her account had been frozen,” Bature said.
“The failure of the first defendant to inform the claimant of the state of affairs on her account amounts to negligence on the part of the first defendant and hence, a breach of duty of care and due diligence owed to the claimant.”
The court declared that an ex parte order freezing a bank account cannot validly subsist indefinitely and ordered Zenith Bank to immediately lift the PND placed on Abhulimen & Co’s account.
Bature also directed the bank to publish an unreserved apology to the claimant in two national newspapers and on its website.
With Monday’s decision, the Court of Appeal affirmed all the reliefs granted by the FCT High Court, including the N60 million general damages and N25 million costs awarded against Zenith Bank and the NPF.