FIERCE LEGAL BATTLE: Between Amnesty Office Staff & Cordinator, Brigadier Boro

FIERCE LEGAL BATTLE OPENS BETWEEN  AMNESTY OFFICE STAFF AND CORDINATOR OF THE PROGRAMME,BRIGADIER PAUL BOROH

The legal battle between a staff of the Presidential Amnesty Office, Mr. Eugene Abels and the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator, Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Brig-Gen. Paul Boroh, comes up again at the Industrial Court, Abuja on the 30th of September 2016, over the refusal to pay his accumulated salary and allowances since May 2015.

The matter came up sometime in July 2016 in the Industrial Court 1 and due to the mix up in the Registry, relevant papers were supposedly not served on the Amnesty office and thus the Judge was forced to adjourned the matter to the 30th of September 2016.

The issues of contention on the side of Eugene Abels is the enforcement of his rights by the courts, to cause the Special Adviser to pay him his entitlements to date. While General Boroh’s argument is about the status of Eugene Abels - whether he was a staff or consultant and that Eugene Abels had no locus to sue the office.

Legal pundits observed that the fact that Eugene Abels worked for the office and is been owed for work done and thus entitled to wages is not in contention by the Amnesty office, but find it absurd that the Barrister Sweet Adesanya led legal team to advice against nonpayment for service durely rendered, despite that the funds for his allowances and wages were durely appropriated and provided by an act of parliament.

The legal pundits posit that It was unwise for legal officers to incur legal liabilities for the federal government while excercing authority on behalf of the state.They hope the Attorney General will look at such display of excesses: particularly when funds are properly provided.It is not the duty of the complainant to provide the vehicle for the disbursement of his wages except to provide his account details for the reception of his wages and allowances.

A Niger Delta stake holder who was interviewed and preferred to remain anonymous said this inhuman act by lieutenants of the President puts his administration in bad light with the people of the region, saying that “if a man like Eugene Abels who productively manned the education desk that the office today celebrate the graduands  can be treated so shabbily and also denied the right of seeing his family for over a year” then there is no incentive in been law abiding.

It is worthy to state the  need for the speedy dispensation of justice as the papers were filed in January 2016 and  nine months down the line, the matter have not really started. We hope that the change mantra of the present Administration will be applied in this sector and cause it to be resourced for efficient service delivery for now, the Complainant Eugene Abels and his family suffers while representatives of the President in the Amnesty office cruise on with their business.

We will be in court to keep you abreast of this matter on the 30th of September 2016

For more on this story read:
http://newsdiaryonline.com/amnesty-office-staff-sues-buharis-adviser-over-unpaid-salary/

A staff of the Presidential Amnesty Office, Mr. Eugene Abels, has dragged the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator, Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Brig-Gen. Paul Boroh, to the Industrial Court, Abuja, over the refusal to pay his accumulated salary and allowances.

Abels, a Principal Manager, is being owed salary and allowances since May 2015.

In his statement of claim, he said he had to approach the court having exhausted all the internal mechanisms at resolving the issue.He said rather than paying him, they kept him working without salary even when he impressed it on the defendants that the non-payment of his salary was affecting him and by extension his family.

In an application filed on his behalf by the law firm of Egang Agabi & Co., the claimant said the more he demanded the payment of his salary the more he was threatened.

“For instance, his project car assigned to him since November 12, 2012 and other work materials were withdrawn on September 30, 2015 even though he was still working,” he stated.

He is therefore seeking among other reliefs a declaration by the court that his “employment as a non-pensionable staff of the first and second defendant is still subsisting and as such is entitled to all the benefits accruable to those class of employees, as conveyed through his letter of employment.”

He also wants the court to declare that he is entitled to the payment of his monthly salary and Mission Sustenance Allowance (MSA) from the month of May 2015 when it was stopped until judgment is given.

The Special Adviser’s office was not represented in court at the first hearing of the case on March 18 and the matter was adjourned to May 18, 2016 according to the newsdiaryoline.com an online publication.