Court lifts Igbinoba’s suspension as FHA Homes MD/CEO

The National Industrial Court of Nigeria sitting before his Lordship, Honourable Justice N. Agbakoba in the Abuja Judicial Division has reversed the suspension of Roland Igbinoba from office as the managing director and chief executive officer of FHA Homes Limited on June 2, 2015.

Igbinoba had dragged Federal Housing Authority, FHA Homes Limited and Mohammed Al-Amin,  (MD/CEO) to the industrial court, seeking four main reliefs among which was a declaration that the decision reached by the 1st and 3rd defendants at the meeting held on June 2, 2015 was null and void.

He also sought an order of perpetual injunction restraining the Defendants from giving effect or continuing to give effect to the decision reached and contained in the letter dated June 2, 2015.

In his judgment, Agbakoba held that employers could  not suspend without pay where there was no express or contractual right to do so. This, he explained, was because in suspending an employee without pay, the employer has taken it up upon itself (outside of the court) to assess its own damages for the employee’s misconduct at the sum which would be represented by the wages of the days the employee remained suspended.

The judge stated that the law permits a person unlawfully suspended from work to seek redress in the court and claim his full salary which is what the claimant in the instance case has done, adding that the legal consequences of suspension are determinable from the terms of employment in question.

“Cardinal consequence is that the suspended employee remains an employee of the employer even in suspension. In the instant case, other than Exhibit C3- C3(1), there is no conditions of service’ frontloaded by the claimant. Under cross reference in “PMB Condition of Service, he was never given any such document”, he noted.

Continuing, he said, “since there is no ‘condition of service providing for suspension (Exhibit C3 did not provide for it either), it means that there is no express or contractual right of the defendant to suspend without pay. The claimant’s case is that, since the suspension, all entitlements due to him have been suspended without pay”.

On the strength of this plus several instances of similar cases he cited, the judge averred that being an appointee of the defendant, the claimant was still the managing director of the 2nd defendant and therefore, remained entitled to his salary and allowance even during the period of the invalid suspension.

He declared that the defendant’s letter of June 2, 2015 emanating from the 2nd defendant suspending the claimant was wrongful; that the claimant was entitled to his monthly salary, benefits and entitlements from the defendant from June 2, 2015, and that the claimant remained the Managing Director of the 2nd defendant.

The judge also declared that the claimant was entitled to all his due salaries and allowances accruing during the period of the illegal suspension given that the suspension of the claimants was wrong and invalid; that the cost of this suit was put at N300,000 only payable by the defendant to the claimant, and that all sums due and payable under this judgment were to be paid within 30 days of this judgment, failing which they should attract interest at 10 percent per annum until fully paid.

CHUKA UROKO