A protection order is a court order telling somebody to stop. It is one of the very few tools that changes a man’s behaviour by changing his risk, rather than by asking him to be different.
It can require a person not to contact you, not to come near your home or your workplace, not to approach your children’s school, and in some circumstances to leave the house you share even where the property is his.
Before you start
Two things make an application substantially stronger, and both can be started today without committing you to anything.
A record
Dates, what happened, what was said, photographs of injuries, medical notes, damaged property, messages and call logs. Written at the time rather than reconstructed afterwards.
Keep it somewhere he cannot reach. For most women that means an email sent to an account he has never heard of rather than a notebook in the house.
A witness or an official record
Anyone who saw an incident, heard it, or saw the injuries afterwards. A hospital record or a police extract carries particular weight even if you did not pursue a case at the time, because it is dated and made by somebody with no stake in the outcome.
Getting injuries recorded is worth doing on the day whether or not you ever intend to go to court.
You can apply without either of these. They simply make it easier, and they shorten the time the court needs.
The steps
- Get advice. A lawyer, a legal aid clinic, a state agency, or an organisation like ours. The procedure differs by state and local knowledge matters more here than knowledge of the statute.
- Make the application. A written application to the court setting out who you are, who he is, the relationship between you, what has happened and precisely what you are asking the court to order.
- Ask about an interim order. Where there is immediate danger a court can make a temporary order quickly, before the full hearing, so that you are not unprotected while the matter is listed. Ask for this explicitly rather than waiting to be offered it.
- Service. He has to be told that an application has been made. This is the moment most women worry about and it should be planned for rather than hoped through. Raise it with your lawyer at the first meeting.
- The hearing. He can attend and respond. You may be required to give evidence. Support can usually attend with you, and it is worth arranging.
- The order. If granted, obtain several certified copies. Keep one with you, one at work, one with the school and one with somebody you trust.
What an order can require
- Not to assault, threaten or harass you.
- Not to contact you, directly or through other people. The second half matters, because messages passed through relatives are extremely common.
- To stay a set distance away from named places.
- To leave the family home, or not to enter it.
- To surrender a weapon.
- To pay for accommodation, medical treatment or the maintenance of children, in some circumstances.
Ask for what you actually need rather than what seems modest. An order that omits your workplace because you did not think to mention it is an order that does not cover the place he is most likely to appear.
Your address
Your address can be withheld from the papers where there is a risk. Raise this at the very start, before anything is filed, rather than after the documents have been prepared. Once an address is in a court document it is difficult to remove.
Cost and free help
Court fees are modest. A lawyer is not free, and for many women the money is controlled by the person they are applying against, which is itself part of the problem.
The Legal Aid Council of Nigeria, university law clinics, state ministries of justice and several charities take domestic abuse cases without charge. Ask us and we will look for somebody in your state. Legal protection is one of our six programmes for exactly this reason.
If he breaks it
Breaking a protection order is an offence in its own right. This is the most useful thing about having one.
- Call 112 if you are in danger.
- Report the breach, and show your copy of the order rather than describing it.
- Write down the date, the time, what happened and the officer’s name.
- Keep every message. A pattern of breaches strengthens everything that follows.
What to record and how is set out separately, and the short version is that you should screenshot before you block.
Being honest about the difficulty
Applications take longer than they should. Some police stations still treat a family matter as something to be settled at home. Some courts sit slowly and some adjourn repeatedly.
What we can tell you with confidence is that women who go through this with somebody beside them do considerably better than women who go alone. That difference is larger than any other factor we see, and it is not about legal skill. It is about somebody being present who has done it before and who will go back the next day.
It is not a divorce
A protection order has no effect on the status of your marriage. Many women obtain one precisely so they can stay in the home safely, or stay while they decide. If you are also thinking about ending the marriage, that is a separate process.
Questions people ask
Do I need a lawyer?
Not strictly, and somebody else may apply on your behalf with your consent. In practice a lawyer or an experienced support worker makes a large difference, and free help exists.
Will he be told where I am staying?
He must be told an application has been made. Your address can be withheld where there is a risk, but raise it at the very start, before anything is filed.
How long does it take?
Where there is immediate danger a court can make a temporary order quickly. A full order takes longer and varies by state and by court. Ask for a realistic timetable for your local court.
What if he ignores it?
Breaching an order is a separate offence, so the police can act on the breach without proving the original abuse again. Report every breach and keep your copy of the order with you.
Does it end my marriage?
No. It has no effect on the status of your marriage.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, call or send a message to +2348025170267, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
- This is not medical advice.
- Nothing here is a diagnosis and nothing here replaces being examined. Do not delay seeing a doctor, nurse or pharmacist because of something you read here, and do not start, stop or change any treatment on the strength of it. If something is time critical, go and be seen.
- This is not counselling, and it is not financial advice.
- Articles about trauma, sleep, money, debt, renting or starting a business describe what commonly helps. They are not therapy and they are not a recommendation about your own money. Speak to a counsellor, a qualified adviser or your own bank about your circumstances.
- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
- Law changes, services close, numbers stop answering and practice varies by state. We correct what we find, and we cannot promise that every page is current on the day you read it. Where we do not have something confirmed, we say so rather than fill the gap.
- Reading this does not make us your lawyer or your doctor.
- No professional relationship is created by reading an article, and we cannot accept liability for decisions taken on the strength of one. What we can do is help you reach somebody who is qualified to advise you, which is what the legal and health parts of our work exist for.
- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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