The National Industrial Court in Yola has ruled that the Taraba State Government acted unconstitutionally by excluding 18 non-indigene former employees of Taraba Publishing Company Limited from absorption into the state civil service solely because of their states of origin. Justice James Agbadu-Fishim ordered the government and related parties to pay the workers more than ₦73 million in outstanding entitlements plus ₦30 million in damages.
The claimants, led by Mr. Hosea, were employed by Taraba Publishing Company Limited at different times. Their appointments were confirmed after probation, and they continued receiving salaries until payments stopped in September 2014. They received no termination or disengagement letters.
When the company later scaled back operations, the Taraba State Government absorbed only workers who were indigenes of the state into the civil service, leaving the 18 non-indigenes out. The court found this selective treatment discriminatory and a violation of their constitutional right to freedom from discrimination.
Justice Agbadu-Fishim ordered the Executive Governor of Taraba State, the Attorney General, the Commissioner for Information, and Taraba Publishing Company Limited to pay the 18 claimants a combined ₦73,257,715.40 covering unpaid entitlements from September 2014 to January 2021. He also awarded ₦30 million in general damages for the mental torture, trauma and hardship the workers suffered, plus ₦5.3 million as costs of the action.
The defendants had argued that the publishing company had been wound up and was a separate legal entity, so the workers had no contractual link with the state government. They maintained that even if the government held controlling shares, that did not convert the company’s employees into civil servants or make the company an agent of the state.
The court rejected the claim that the company had been wound up. Documentary evidence, including a Corporate Affairs Commission status report, showed the company remained registered and had not been dissolved. The judge noted that the Taraba State Government had promoted and incorporated the company, controlled its affairs, and appointed its Managing Consultant and Chief Executive Officer.
Justice Agbadu-Fishim held that a state government cannot create a company, employ workers through it, stop funding or operating it without formally terminating the workers or properly winding up the company, and then rely on the company’s separate legal personality to escape salary, gratuity and other employment obligations.
He further observed that employees of a state-owned company may, in exceptional circumstances, be treated as being in the public service of the state for constitutional purposes where the government holds controlling interest. Even so, they remain governed by the company’s own conditions of service unless the Public Service Rules have been incorporated into their contracts. In peculiar cases of this kind, the government cannot hide behind corporate personality to defeat workers’ constitutional rights.
The dispute arose after Taraba Publishing Company Limited, established by the state for publishing and commercial purposes, stopped paying the claimants in 2014. While indigene former staff were later taken into the civil service, the non-indigenes were left without salaries, formal termination or alternative employment. The claimants maintained their appointments had never been lawfully ended.
Counsel for the claimants, Dr. M.M. Mailafiya, argued that the workers had proved their case with clear and unchallenged evidence. The court agreed.
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