Court orders CBN to pay 110 disengaged ABU staff

The Abuja National Industrial Tribunal on Thursday ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to pay 110 laid-off employees of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, their dues.

In a ruling, Judge Rakiya Hasstrup raised a single issue for determination.

The question was whether there was enough material presented to the court to make an absolute order.

Furthermore, the court ruled that it was not necessary to seek the consent of the Attorney General before making the payment.

Mrs Hasstrup stated that the reason was that the AG was a party to the lawsuit.

The court also dismissed the judgment creditor’s objection that the fourth garneshee acted with malice.

The objection was raised that the fourth garneshee moved the ABU fund domiciled with him to TSA after he became aware of the court’s order to pay judgment creditors.

In the ruling, the court also ruled out ABU Microfinance Bank, which was the fourth garneshee, as a party to the lawsuit.

Earlier, when the matter was raised, the lawyer for the first and third lawsuit debtors, Yahaya Mohammed, had informed the court that the matter was scheduled to be decided.

However, he said they had filed a request on Tuesday and the parties had been notified of the request.

Mr Mohammed also stated that the request was to regularize his process by extension of time and to show cause.

Femi Adedeji, a lawyer for the judgment creditors for his part, opposed the request, arguing that the court did not ask the first and third judgment creditors to show cause, since the parties who were supposed to do so had already done so.

Mr Adedeji further stated that he was served with court proceedings after 9 am shortly before the day’s proceedings in order to delay justice.

The lawyer also said that the last procedure took place on November 3, 2021, and that the processes should have been notified earlier.

Mr Mohammed replied that the AG cannot delay justice and that the creditors of the sentence did not deliver the processes to them

The court, after hearing submissions from both attorneys, dismissed and struck out the applications.

The court indicated that, pursuant to NICN rule 15 order 14 of the procedure, such requests should have been filed seven days prior to the court session.

The judge also ruled that under NICN rule, when a matter is set for adjudication, no motion is allowed before it. He then proceeded to read the sentence.

The appointments of 110 ABU employees ended in 1996 when the institution was headed by a Sole Administrator.

They approached the court in 2012 after the institution failed to implement the recommendations of several visiting panels, which recommended that they be reinstated and their rights paid in full.

The court ruled in favour of the staff in 2015, ordering the university to reinstate them and pay their dues, which amounted to N2.5 billion.

Failure to comply with the court ruling required the seizure order of the institution’s bank accounts in 2017.

However, when the garneshee proceedings were ongoing, the judgment debtors applied for a stay of the proceedings as they had lodged an appeal with the Court of Appeal (in November 2018) challenging the 2015 judgment.

The Court of Appeals, for its part, on May 24, 2021, dismissed the appeal and confirmed the first instance decision.