The National Industrial Court Lagos,
has declared as wrongful, uconstitutional, illegal, nulll and voild the
compulsary retirement of Lt. Col. Thomas Edirin Arigbe, who was one of
the 38 Army officers compulsorily retired from the service in 2016 in a
controversial circumstances.
While delivering the judgment, Justice
P. A Bassi ordered the Nigerian Army to reinstate the senior officer with all
his entitlements paid up to date of reinstatement.
The judge held that Nigerian Army
compulsorily retired the claimant without fair hearing, adding that it
(Nigerian Army) had failed to place anything before the court to prove any
wrong commited by the officer to warrant the compulsory retirement.
The court also awarded N300,000 cost
as legal fee against the defendant.
It would be recalled that, the
Nigerian Army had on June 9, 2016 sent 38 officers on a compulsory retirement
without any form of trial or General Court-Martial with most of them unaware of
their offences till date.
Arigbe had instituted the suit
marked NICN/LA/711/2016 through his counsel, Mrs. Funmi Falana to challeng the
action of the Nigerian Army, praying the court to set aside the compulsory
retirement from the Army on June 9, 2016.
In his statement of claim dated November
17, 2016, Arigbe had prayed the court to order Army to reinstate and pay him
all the arrears of his salaries and allowances from June 9, 2016 to date.
He equally asked the court to order
his promotion to the rank he would have attained before his retirement.
Arigbe was commissioned into Army as
2nd Lieutenant on September 19, 1998 before his compulsory retirement in 2016.
He contended that by dint of hard
work, he was promoted to Lieutenant in April 1999, Captain in August 2011,
Major in August 2006 and Lieutenant Colonel in August and was due for promotion
to the next rank in August 2016 before he was maliciously compulsory retired in
2016.
Arigbe said the Army sent him to
United Kingdom from 2010-2011 to study for a master’s degree in communication
engineering and that he completed the course in flying colours, and that upon
his return he was posted to the North-east in Damaturu where he served as
second-in-command at 241 Battalion and Chief of Staff Operation Restore Order
III.
He said he was thereafter he was
posted to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan as military assistant to
the force commander.
According to him, due to his
outstanding and exemplary discharge of his duties and responsibilities, he was
nominated to represent the Armed Forces College at the combined joint European
Exercise in April/May 2014 and was appointed as the Staff Officer Grade One,
(Training and Exercises), a position exclusively reserved for honest, diligent,
disciplined and hardworking officers in the Department of Land Warfare (Army
Faculty) at the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji.
He noted that it was the outstanding
performance that spurred his posting on June 18, 2015 as an instructor as
part of the Directing Staff Exchange Programme for a two-year duty tour with
effect from September 2015 to September 2017 with the Ghana Armed Forces
Command and Staff College, Teshie.
He said surprisingly on June 10,
2016, he received an e-mail conveying a letter dated June 9, 2016, from the
Army stating that he had been compulsorily retired from service on disciplinary
grounds, adding that prior to his compulsory retirement, he had never been
accused of any offence directly or indirectly. He was neither queried, charged,
tried or found guilty of any offence.
He said worried by his sudden
disengagement without prior notice of infraction through a query or a board of
inquiry and an opportunity to defend himself in line with the law of the
service, via a letter dated June 16, 2016, he appealed to the President
Muhammadu Buhari through the army for redress and that by a letter dated August
8, 2016 and received August 18, 2016, the Army responded to his appeal stating
that it was receiving attention which never came till he when to court and has
not come till date.
He stated that it was through
national newspapers and the internet that the Army said he was compulsorily
retired on disciplinary partisanship in the 2015 general election and
involvement in the Defence contract scam.
He contended that the Army never
gave him fair hearing before compulsorily retiring him, adding that he was
portrayed in bad light in the eyes of public when he did not commit any offence
nor tried for any alleged offences whether real or imagined.
He concluded that the Army’s
unfounded claim against him has made it impossible for private security outfits
to consider him for employment, thereby making his life miserable at a very
young age of 41.
The Army had responded that the suit
was filed out time, citing Section 2a of the Public Officers Protection Act.
Also citing Section 96 of the
Sheriffs Act, it argued the suit was filed at a wrong location, contending that
the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.
The Force said the claimant did
comply with Section 178(3) of the Armed Forces Act which states that an
aggrieved officer must exhaust administrative procedures first in seeking
redress before going to court.
While resolving most of the issues
raised by the Nigerian Army in favour of the claimant, Justice Bassi held that
Claimant is the proper person to have instituted the case and that case is not
statute barred.
The court also resolved the issue
of National Industrial Cour jurisdiction raised by the defendant in
favour of the claimant, saying it is the proper court to file the suit.
