The National Industrial Court,
Abuja, on Thursday, converted a summary dismissal of a staff of Forte Oil Plc
to termination and ordered the company to pay N6.280 million as gratuity.
The court arrived at the sum by
calculating the claimant’s basic monthly salary by the numbers of years he
worked for the defendant.
Justice Benedict Kanyip also
ordered that the company to pay the claimant, Mr Muhammed Chiroma, the sum of
N400,530 being his one month salary in lieu of notice.
Kanyip, earlier in the judgment,
declared that the claimant’s purported dismissal was wrongful and set it aside.
He further said the dismissal was
wrongful for not following the policies and procedures manual governing the
conditions of service for defendant’s staff.
According to Kanyip, the manual
stipulated termination of employment for a staff found guilty of dereliction
and negligence of duty and not summary dismissal.
He equally said the manual also
stated that a staff can be issued a query by only a direct supervisor and this
fact was disregarded in this case.
Kanyip also pointed out that the
failure of the defendant to set up a disciplinary panel before dismissing the
claimant, was in contrast with provisions of the manual that governed the
conditions of service of the defendant
The judge, therefore, converted
the dismissal to termination and ordered that the judgment should be complied
with, within 30 days.
The claimant, in his statement of
claims, stated that he was employed by the defendant in its Gusau office in
June, 1994.
He added that he rose to the
position of a Sales representative until he was issued a query for dereliction
and negligence of duty.
Mr Lasco Pwahomdi, the claimant’s
counsel, in his submission, said he was not invited to appear before any
disciplinary panel before he was summarily dismissed on Jan. 19, 2010.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
reports that the case was first struck out by a State High Court in Gusau for
lack of jurisdiction in 2013.
The claimant however, appealed
the judgment before Court of Appeal Sokoto division, who then transferred the
case to NICN in 2018.
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