contempt of court
Contempt of court:
NICN president reads riot act
By Adelanwa Bamgboye
The President of the National industrial Court of Nigeria ( NICN) Justice Babatunde Adejumo has warned that nobody is above the law.
Adejumo said this before he disqualified himself from hearing a post judgment application filed by the Federal Ministry of Finance and Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently.
The permanent secretaries of the two ministries had been summoned to appear before the NICN to face contempt charges for allegedly manhandling bailiffs from the NICN who had gone to execute a valid judgment of the court.
The judgment was delivered by Justice P. O. Lifu, Wednesday 19thFebruary, 2014 in a case filed by Obinna Edwin Nnama, a staff of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FMFA) against the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF) and Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FMFA).
Obinna was unlawfully dismissed from service January 2006 to September 2011 when he was re-instated by a letter from the FCSC .
Armed with the letter of reinstatement, Obinna headed to the NICN demanding all his entitlements including foreign service allowances (FSA), children foreign service allowances (CFSA) and the consolidated foreign service allowances which includes spouse allowances which ought to have been paid to him from January 2006 to September 2011.
In the judgment, all the defendants – FCSC, FMF and FMFA were ordered to pay $418,006 USD (equivalent of N83.6 M) as damages and cost to Obinna.
Trouble started when the bailiffs sent by the court to execute the said judgment were allegedly manhandled by the permanent secretaries (PERMSECS) of the affected ministries. The bailiffs who went to the FMF said that they were falsely imprisoned by the permsecs from 9:00 a.m. till 8:00 p.m. in August 2015 before they were rescued by the Commissioner of Police FCT.
In an attempt to stop the execution of the judgment, the judgment debtors now filed a motion asking for a stay of execution.
When the case came up before Justice Adejumo, he expressed serious displeasure over the unwholesome behavior of the affected senior government official and threatened to send them to prison.
NICN president, Justice Adejumo said that having expressed his displeasure, the proper thing to do was to re-assign the case to Justice Isele.
Adejumo however ordered that the vehicles belonging to the judgment debtors that had already been attached must be brought to the court pending the hearing of the application.
