Justice Benedict Kanyip of the National Industrial Court (NIC) has ruled against the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and two others for prematurely retiring Dozie Nwanna, a former senior diplomat at the Nigerian High Commission in London.
In a 31-page judgment issued on December 16, 2013, Justice Kanyip ruled that Mr. Nwanna’s tenure of service was yet to expire, adding that the agency’s highly controversial decision to retire the ambassador was invalid.
The judge ruled that the agency had improperly made Mr. Nwanna’s promotion to count against him, pointing out that a public officer cannot be promoted to his disadvantage. Justice Kanyip stated that the agency’s 8-year tenure policy applies only to directors of Nigeria’s public service who have actually spent eight years on the post, “not notionally.”
Mr. Nwanna had taken the agency to court for backdating his promotion in order to serve the goal of forcing him to retire before his tenure’s expiration. The trial judge ruled that the tenure policy could not override rule 0281(iv) (a) of the Public Service rules which states that a public officer cannot be promoted to his disadvantage.
The court held that Ambassador Nwanna’s tenure as a director with the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) is for a fixed period of eight years with effect from March 1, 2006 when he started serving on post as a director. The tenure will end on February 28, 2014, the judge ruled. The court declared null and void the NIA’s purported notice ordering Mr. Nwanna to retire in January, 2012.
A source at the NIA disclosed that Ambassador Ezekiel Oladeji, the former Director General of the agency, ordered that Mr. Nwanna be locked out of his Abuja office and his salary stopped from April 2012 after Mr. Nwanna’s return from London where he served as Nigeria’s Deputy High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. “He was humiliated by being locked out even after a court ordered the NIA to maintain status quo antebellum,” said the source.
A London-based friend of Mr. Nwanna’s told SaharaReporters that the former deputy ambassador and his family suffered severe hardship and irreparable material and psychological injury due to the personal vendetta of Mr. Oladeji, the NIA’s former director-general.
A source at the NIA told our correspondent that Mr. Nwanna’s hasty retirement was part of a ploy by the former DG of the NIA to deny Mr. Nwanna the right to be considered for appointment to the highest position at the agency.
The UK-based friend of Mr. Nwanna’s expressed gratitude to God for the vindication of the former deputy High Commissioner’s stance that he was a victim of injustice. “The judgment is a clear testimony of the commitment of Chief Justice Aloma Muktar to ensure that the Judiciary is not only truly independent but remains the last hope of the powerless. The judgment has also proved that impunity, executive lawlessness and the whims and caprices of powerful people like the former Director General of NIA, Ezekiel Oladeji, cannot override the express provisions of the law,” said the source.
A political source in Abuja said that President Goodluck Jonathan deserved commendation for resisting pressure from very powerful but compromised officials to dismiss Ambassador Nwanna from service during the pendency of the case. “Some people were asking Mr. President to sack the man [Mr. Nwanna] for daring to challenge the malicious attempt by the former DG, NIA to wangle him out of employment by manipulation of the Federal Government’s tenure policy,” said the source.
The case generated national attention when Justice Maureen Esowe of the Abuja division of the NIC wept in open court as she announced her removal from the case. SaharaReporters learned that hirelings of Mr. Oladeji, the then Director General of the NIA, had sent a deceptive petition to the President of the Court accusing Justice Esowe of manifest bias against the NIA. The petitioner had stated that Justice Esowe sympathized with the former Deputy High Commissioner being a fellow Igbo. In addition, the petition had falsely claimed that Esowe, who is from Abia state and a cousin of Ojo Maduekwe, is also a cousin of Ambassador Nwanna's lawyer, Chike Francis Maduekwe, who happens to be from Anambra State. Based on the spurious claims of cousinly relationship between Esowe and Ambassador Nwanna's lawyer, the petition alleged that Justice Esowe should be disqualified from hearing the matter.
A judicial source told SaharaReporters that the false petition was sponsored by the NIA’s former DG and written by some highly placed Nigerians, including a former Chief Justice of Nigeria.
After the file was taken away from Justice Esowe in October 2012, Mr. Nwanna’s lawyer reportedly wrote a petition to Chief Justice Mariam Aloma Muktar who then reassigned the lawsuit to Justice Benedict Kanyip of the Lagos Division of the NIC in March 2013. SaharaReporters learned that Justice Kanyip had to commute between Lagos and Abuja to hear the suit until he delivered judgment last Monday.
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