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His Lordship, Hon. Justice Bashar Alkali of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria, Yenagoa Judicial Division on Friday 11th May in a ruling dismissed preliminary objection for lacking merit and assumed jurisdiction in a case of MR. ITONYO K. TIMIPA & 4 ors V. MORPOL JAIHIND ZAKHEM CONSORTIUM.
The Claimants individually instituted separate actions by a way of complaint dated 26th January 2018, therefore claims the following reliefs among others against the Defendants; AN ORDER for the payment of the sum of One Million Five Hundred and Sixty Thousand Naira (N1,560,000.00) only being and representing each Claimant’s salary arrears, outstanding for the months of July, August, September, October, November, December, 2016 to January, February, March, April, May, June and July 2017.
The Defendant now upon served with the originating processes filed a Notice of Preliminary Objection challenging the jurisdiction of this court on the ground that the suit is incompetent because the Claimants failed to abide by the provisions of Trade Disputes Act, which provides that the Claimants has to initiate settlement and if it failed, they can now report to the Minister of Labour who in turn refer same to the Industrial Arbitration Panel and then refer the issue to this court. That unless all these processes are followed, with a view to ignite the jurisdiction of this court, then this court has no requisite jurisdiction to entertain this matter.
The claimant Counsel further argued that it is crystal clear the constitution is the grum norms and supersedes every other laws, acts, and rules that derives its powers from same.
After reviewing the argument of the parties, the Court Presided by Hon. Justice Bashar Alkali expressed thus;
“I have carefully read and understood all the processes filed by the Learned Counsels on either side, I also perused and analysed the Written Addresses filed by both parties including the averments contained in both the Supporting and Opposing Affidavits and the Oral Submissions made by both Counsels.
Having said all these, looking at the claims of the Claimants including the Statement of Facts one can conveniently say that the claims of the Claimants cannot be termed as a trade dispute.
In view of the foregoing facts as I enumerated above I resolved the lone issue for determination in favour of the Claimants/Respondents and hold that this suit is competent and this court has the requisite jurisdiction to entertain this suit. The Preliminary Objection is hereby dismissed for lacking merit.
Ruling is hereby entered accordingly.
