5,000 Teachers: Udom's Govt Has Nothing To Defend In Court - Lawyer... Clears Air On Igbo Claims

By UbongAbasi Ise

The counsel to the 5,000 sacked teachers, Barr. Clifford Thomas, says it is now very clear that the Akwa Ibom State Government has nothing to defend in court against his clients over the wrongful termination of their teaching appointment.
Speaking with our correspondent over weekend, the human rights lawyersaid the case is very much live in the court contrary to the mischievous claims that the matter is dead and buried. He slammed the state government for failing to make available, within the stipulated time, a Record of Appeal as ordered by the Court of Appeal sitting in Calabar.
“Whoever is saying that the case of 5000 teachers is dead and buried is as ignorant as any ignorant person. In fact the person’s state of mind is not just being ignorant but being mischievous.
“The AkwaIbom State Government and the defendants, generally, could not offer any defense to their illegal action of wrongfully terminating the appointment of the 5000 teachers on radio. They breached the procedure and we informed the court that the procedure had been breached. So when we came up with our processes in court and they could not offer any defense, what they did was to raise a preliminary objection. And in their preliminary objection, they said that our clients did not have the right to have approached the court on representative capacity. So on the basis of that, the court does not have jurisdiction to entertain the case, and demanded the court should strike it out. But God gave us grace and we argued very successfully, and the court upheld our position,” he said.
Barr. Thomas said the officials of the AkwaIbom State government, after feeling dissatisfied with the decision of National Industrial Court, approached the Court of Appeal, Calabar Division, where they were given time to transmit record of appeal but they failed to comply.
“Having felt so defeated, they rushed to the Court of Appeal to ask the court to extend the time for them to produce the notice of appeal. The court granted them 14 days on the 29th day of November, 2017 but they failed; they neglected and refused to obey court order. And that puts them in the contempt of the court. They did not file within 14 days. And they were required by the rules of the court and the laws of the land that they should, within 60 days, transmit what is called the record of appeal. The record of appeal is a compilation of all the processes and exhibits; it is every piece of document filed in the course of the suit, the matter at the National Industrial Court. We went to the National Industrial Court three times, they refused to appear. And when we calculated the days and noticed that they had failed in their 14 days, 30 days, 60 days, and 30 days. We now approached the court in May this year, which is more than 120 days thereafter. We said we will be asking for a dismissal of whatever thing they want to bring. And the court checked throughout the record, and there was no record of their transmission of the Record of Appeal to the appellate court. There was no transmission;nothing whatsoever was found in the file because ordinarily we supposed to sit down with them at the National Industrial Court to be able to bring up certain records.
“It was after we had filed in May at the Court of Appeal, Calabar that this people shamelessly acting on the instruction of the devil himself, brought up something they claimed to be a record of appeal. And this thing came up in July I supposed. When they brought it we signed actually, and collected it the day they brought it. They are totally out of time, and they don’t have any authority to continue again,” said the human rights lawyer.
Barr. Clifford Thomas said the legal battle will continue as soon as the courts resume.
“We are going to the court very soon. We are waiting for the Court of Appeal to resume; we are waiting for the National Industrial Court to resume so that we can be live and direct with them again. But as I speak with you now they don’t have any defense. The government failed in that regard, and we are waiting for them,” he declared.
It would be recalled that in November 2017, the presiding judge, Ibrahim Mohammed Saulawa of the Court of Appeal granted the state government 14 days extension after it previously failed to meet up with the filing of an evidential appeal against the decision of the National Industrial Court in Suit Number NICN/UY/03/2017 delivered by Justice M.N. Esowe on 18th May 2017. The court held that the interest and grievances of the 5,000 teachers were common in the case, and instituting different actions in thesame case and on the same subject matter would amount to multiplicity of suits and abuse of court processes.
Reacting to recent claim made by Dr. Anny Asikpo on radio that 90% of the sacked 5,000 teachers came from the Southeast, Barr. Clifford Thomas said such claim was made out of ignorance, describing it as embarrassing.
“We must sympathize with whoever Mr. Anny Asikpo is, for not knowing the real position of things that he comments on. For him to have come with this spurious claim that 90% of the 5000 teachers which invariably should be about 4,500 persons were Igbo persons, I don’t think its proper.We should sympathize with him. There are times you need to pity some people who out of ignorance are trying to play to the gallery and end up exposing their ignorance and very shameful position in which he shamelessly displayed. I don’t want the public to believe him. Mr. Anny Asikpo supposed to be an educationist, and he supposed to know. It is embarrassing that he could come out with this kind of position. I think he needs more proper education to know the demography of those who were employed. AkwaIbom persons were employed, unfortunately, Mr. Udom Emmanuel’s government on the last day of October 2016 went ahead to wrongfully terminate their appointment,” he stressed.
It would be recalled that in November 2017, the presiding judge, Ibrahim Mohammed Saulawa of the Court of Appeal granted the state government 14 days extension after it previously failed to meet up with the filing of an evidential appeal against the decision of the National Industrial Court in Suit Number NICN/UY/03/2017 delivered by Justice M.N. Esoweon 18th May 2017. The court held that the interest and grievances of the 5,000 teachers were common in the case, and instituting different actions in thesame case and on the same subject matter would amount to multiplicity of suits and abuse of court processes.

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