Dismissed policemen lament non-reinstatement despite court order

Five Akwa Ibom State police officers who were allegedly wrongly fired in 2007 have asked Senator Aniekan Bassey and Senate President Godswill Akpabio to step in.

Additionally, they pleaded with other state members of the National Assembly to recognize their predicament and guarantee their reinstatement and payment of salary arrears and other various allowances from 2007 to the present.

Sunday Okon, Anthony Ebong, Joseph Ede, Victor Ibe, and Uduak Sampson were among the affected officers who joined the service in 2003 based on their trade professions. They were fired in 2007, just four years later, on the grounds that they lacked literacy, even though they had received training and been certified for the position.

Speaking with our correspondent in Uyo on Wednesday, the spokesman for the officers, Ibe, said that after several appeals that fell on deaf ears, they had to take the matter to court, which ordered their reinstatement since 2019.

He said, “We were forced to drag the NPF and Police Service Commission to the National Industrial Court in suit No. NICN/UY/08/2018, having exhausted all the channels to plead for our reinstatement.

“The court, in 2019, ruled in our favour, declaring the purported disengagement null and void and ordered that we should be reinstated into the ranks we would have been but for the dismissal. The court also ordered that all arrears of our salaries and allowances be paid to us.

“So we are pleading with our Senate President, Godswill Akpabio and the Senate representing Uyo senatorial district, Senator Aniekan Bassey and other National Assembly members to come to our aid.”

According to a Certified True Copy of the judgment obtained by our correspondent in Uyo, the judge, Justice M. A. Namtari, ruled, “accordingly, the claimants’ case succeeds in the following terms: It is hereby declared that the dismissal of the claimants by the defendants from the Nigeria Police Force without compliance with service rules and without due process is unlawful and unwarranted.

“The defendants are hereby ordered to immediately reinstate the claimants into the Nigeria Police Force on the ranks they would have been but for their unlawful dismissal from service.

“The defendants are hereby ordered and directed to pay each of the claimants their salaries, allowances and other entitlements from January 2007 till the date of their reinstatement into the Nigeria Police Force.

“This judgment should be complied with within 90 days from today. Judgment entered accordingly. I make no order as to cost.’’

Ibe bemoaned the fact that, despite numerous letters to the PSC and succeeding Inspector Generals of Police, nothing had been done to comply with the court's decision seven years after the order.

He recalled that former senator Bassey Albert had brought their case to the Senate floor, but nothing was ultimately done, despite the fact that the majority of their colleagues who knew people had been reinstated. He expressed frustrations in the pursuit of justice, stating that all of their attempts to get the PSC to comply with the court order had failed.

Narrating the hardship and inability to get another job, Ibe said, “We are dying here, life has not been easy with us at all. It’s by the grace of God that we are still alive; most of our colleagues have died in the process of litigation. We are not illiterate; we can read and write. Besides, we were employed based on a trade test because we came in as specialists.

“We are begging our dear brother, the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, Senator Aniekan Bassey, Hon Clement Jimbo, Mark Esset and all our lawmakers at the National Assembly to come to our rescue. All we want is for the PSC to obey the court order since the case was not appealed.”