National Industrial Court, Lagos Division has nullified Bank of Industry (BoI)’s purported sack of its Assistant General Manager, Mr. Sonny Ekedayen.
Justice R. H. Gwandu set aside BoI’s termination letter to Ekedayen and ordered the bank to reinstate Ekedayen and pay his salary and allowances from the date of purported termination.
The judge gave the orders in a December 8 judgment in suit NICN/LA/569/2015 filed by Ekedayen as claimant against BoI’s Managing Director, Rasheed Olaoluwa and BoI as first and second defendants.
Justice Gwandu held that forcing Ekedayen to resign is misuse of power, a vagrant display of superiority and an infringement on the claimants rights.
“I hold that the claimant’s first relief succeeds. The first defendant is not in any position to direct or force the resignation of any staff, if they must do so, it should be of their own volition, or the company’s internal mechanism has to come into play, this relief is granted.”
The court also granted the claimant’s relief for an order of perpetual injunction restraining Olaoluwa from compelling and/or forcing the claimant to either resign from his employment with BoI or proceed on voluntary early retirement.
“I restrain the first defendant from further misusing his powers as managing director… he is to refrain from attempting to force the claimant to resign his employment with the second defendant and must not do anything that will affect the claimants employment negatively. This relief succeeds and is granted.’’
The judge added: “Any termination/dismissal must be in accordance with the contract and conditions of service, it must also not be seen that the claimant is victimised as a result of this lawsuit, any action to this effect will be treated as contempt of this court’s order and dealt with accordingly.”
The claimant’s case, which he canvassed through his counsel, Abimbola Akeredolu, was that he was an assistant general manager in BoI since February 14, 2003.
He said he was 50 and had served for 12 years in BoI as of November 20, 2015, when the first defendant ordered him to resign or proceed on early retirement on the basis that he (the first defendant) could no longer work with the claimant.
He contended that this contravened his contract and conditions of service.
which provide that the compulsory retirement age for every BoI employee is 60 years or 35 years in service.
He averred that he was neither 60 years old nor had he attained 35 years of service.
