Once again, a former employee of Nigeria Labour Congress,NLC is recording victory against the apex labour union.The National Industrial Court (NIC) sitting in Abuja has awarded substantial damages against the NLC for unlawfully terminating the appointment of Comrade Iduh L. Onah, an Assistant General Secretary who acted as the Head of the Information and Public Relations Department of NLC between September 2009 to March 2011.
This judgment is the second in less than two months that the National Industrial Court is indicting the NLC for violating the rights of its employees. Earlier in January, the court gave a judgment that re-instated Comrade John Odah who was unceremoniously removed as General Secretary of NLC in May 2011.
The court, presided over by the Honourable Justice Babatunde Adejumo, President of the National Industrial Court, delivered judgment in the suit in which Comrade Onah had sought for a declaration that the termination of his appointment on May 24, 2011 based on an alleged re-organisation was a ruse and therefore unlawful. He asked the court for damages up to the tune of N10 million.
In the judgment which lasted for one hour, fifty-three minutes, Justice Adejumo ordered the NLC to pay Comrade Onah two (2) years salaries as general and aggravated damages as well as an order for the payment of three months salaries in lieu of notice to which the claimant is entitled. The NIC President further ordered that Comrade Onah be paid all other entitlements due to employees of the NLC within the last two years and awarded 10% interest on the judgment sum from the date of the judgment until when it is fully liquidated.
Justice Adejumo lampooned the NLC for its contempt for both its own constitution and the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. “The appointment of the claimant herein was summarily determined in flagrant disrespect and disregard of cardinal principles of the conditions of service of the claimant as contained in the constitution and conditions of service of the first respondent [NLC]. The protection of fair hearing accorded the claimant was contemporaneously jettisoned, thus infringing the claimant’s fundamental rights as guaranteed by the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and made part of the conditions of service of the claimant,” the NIC President said and added: “This Court cannot, and will not, encourage a situation whereby the constitution of this country is treated with contempt or where the constitution of an organisation is treated with contempt. It has a sacred duty to protect and promote its observance. I agree with the claimant [Onah) that his feelings have been affected negatively by the actions of the respondents [NLC and its president, Abdulwahed Omar] in this case more so when his appointment was terminated based on a false reason”.
Justice Adejumo declared that Comrade Onah successfully proved his case that his appointment was unjustly terminated. He added: “Flowing from the fact that the appointment of the claimant was wrongfully terminated on the basis that the reason given for the termination was found to be false and that the appointment was not determined in accordance with its [NLC’s] conditions of service, the claimant is entitled to damages.
Speaking to newsmen after the judgment, Comrade Onah, former spokesman of the NLC, said he is “happy that justice eventually triumphed over impunity.” When asked to comment on the aspect of the judgment which failed to re-instate him unlike the judgment in Comrade Odah’s case, Onah said: “I did not submit to the court any prayer for re-instatement and the court cannot give what was not asked for.”
