Steel agency workers sue DG, board chair over unpaid salary, others

Aggrieved staff of the National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency (NSRMEA) have dragged the agency, Chief Executive Officer/Director General and the board chairman to the National Industrial Court of Nigeria in the Kaduna Judicial Division over four months unpaid salaries.

The staff namely Salisu Mustapha, Abubakar Suleiman, Abubakar Umar Musa, Surajo Suleiman, Abdulmumini Ashiru Mohammed, Mohammed Saidu Hayatudeen and Maryam Ibrahim Madugu are asking the court to compel the defendants to migrate their IPPIS salaries number 344509, 227971, 228160, 227963, 398892, 369168 and 227963 into the agency’s payroll and to pay their salaries, emoluments, wages and arrears from January 2023 till date.

When the case came up for mention on Tuesday, counsel to the applicants, Joshua Kure, told the court that all the processes including the originating summons had been filed but they had not received any processes from the defendants.

He however argued that the defence counsel had exceeded their eight days window to respond to the processes as they were served on May 3rd, 2023, noting that his clients had not received their salaries since January, 2023.

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Responding, the defence counsel, Mohammed Abdullahi, said they were studying the processes as they were only briefed on Monday by their clients. He then asked the court for another date to respond to the processes.

The presiding judge, Justice Sinmisola Adeniyi, then adjourned the matter until July 19th, 2023 for a hearing. She said since the defence counsel had brought up an excuse that they had just been briefed, it would only be fair to allow them a later date to study the processes and prepare their defence.  

The applicants in their originating summons are praying the court to declare that by the acceptance of the claimants’ transfer of service and the subsequent deployment of the claimants to various departments within the 1st defendant’s agency, the claimants are bona fide and legitimate employees of the National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency.