Court reinstates university staff fired by commissioner

The court held the commissioner lacked the powers to alter the decision of the school’s governing council.

The National Industrial Court sitting in Benin City has ordered that a university staff dismissed by an education commissioner be reinstated.

Asigene Peter was a non-academic staff of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma when then education commissioner Jimoh Ijegba fired him against the decision of the school’s governing council.

The court held the commissioner lacked the powers to alter the decision of the school’s governing council.

It ruled Ijegba’s intervention as an interference in the disciplinary process of the university.

The court ruled that Asigene be reinstated into his former position before his dismissal with all his due entitlements and emoluments paid from the date of his purported dismissal till the time he is finally reinstated by school.

Ejegbai, former education commissioner, overturned several decisions reached by the University’s Governing Council by changing Peter’s  punishment from demotion to dismissal.

Peter, a chairman of the university’s Non-Academic Staff Union of Education and Associated Institutions went to court to challenge the commissioner’s capacity to unilaterally alter the decisions of the school council.

Meanwhile,  chairman  AAU Branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Monday Igbafen, said the judgement  is a vindication of the Union’s recent outcry against abuse of the University’s laws and due process.