ECOWAS Court orders FG to pay 244 soldiers dismissed in 2016

By ADE ADESOMOJU, Abuja

The West African regional court, ECOWAS Court of Justice, has ordered the Federal Government of Nigeria to pay the arrears of the salaries of 244 soldiers who were dismissed from service in 2016.

A summary of the verdict released by the court’s information department on Friday stated that the judgment delivered on Thursday.

It was stated that the court had in an earlier judgment delivered on May 15, 2019 declared the process of dismissal of the 244 soldiers as flawed and a violation of their right to work and fair hearing.

The court, on Thursday, delivered a supplementary judgment in which it reviewed the earlier May 15, 2019 verdict to include the order for the payment of the dismissed soldiers their entitlements, which was committed in the said previous verdict.

A three-man panel of the court presided over by Justice Gberi-Be Ouattara, therefore ordered the Nigerian government to pay all arrears of monthly allowances, salaries and other entitlements of the applicants up to January 2016.

In the judgment which was delivered by Justice Keikura Bangura, the court held that the decision to review the earlier judgment after listening to the parties to the parties in the case and considered the documents tendered.

Issuing the fresh order, the court said “the judgment of the court in ECW/CCJ/JUD/21/19 delivered on May 15, 2019, is hereby supplemented with an additional paragraph no (vi)”.

The court however rejected the request of the soldiers for an order directing the government to reinstate them.

“The court did not omit to give a decision on reinstatement of the applicants in the original judgment,” the court ruled.

The applicants had filed the supplementary application on June 14, 2019, urging the court to make an order mandating the respondent (Federal Government) to immediately reinstate them, including to their respective ranks, having found that their dismissal without arraignment, prosecution, and sentence by a duly constituted court-martial is illegal, null and void”.

They also asked the court for an order directing the respondent to pay their monthly salaries and other allowances from the whole of 2015 and such other months until the date the judgment is enforced. (The PUNCH)