Dare Babalola
The National Industrial Court in Owerri, Imo State, has ordered First Bank Plc to pay N50 million in damages to Collins Godspower, a wrongfully dismissed staff, over the bank’s “career-damaging and malicious actions” and wrongful blacklisting by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Justice Nelson Ogbuanya, who presided over the case, awarded the judgment sum against First Bank Plc in a suit (NICN/YEN/125/2016) filed by Collins Godspower, ruling in favour of the plaintiff.
The judge also lifted the employment ban on Godspower, ruling that First Bank Plc wrongly reported him to the CBN as an ex-employee dismissed for fraud and dishonesty.
Justice Ogbuanya ruled that the action, which led to Godspower’s blacklisting under Section 44(4) of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act, constituted unfair labour practice and workplace defamation.
Godspower’s lawyer, G. C. Ihunwo, told the court that his client’s employment with First Bank was terminated due to “services no longer required”.
He had previously been suspended and later reinstated over allegations of involvement in an unauthorised dollar transaction.
Godspower said he struggled to find another banking job, only to discover that First Bank Plc had published his name and photo on its portal and reported him to the CBN as someone dismissed for fraud, leading to his blacklisting in the financial sector.
First Bank Plc, through its lawyer A. N. Ozornafor, admitted publishing Godspower’s details and reporting him to the CBN, but claimed it was complying with BOFIA and a CBN circular.
The bank also challenged the jurisdiction of the National Industrial Court to hear the matter.
Justice Ogbuanya, however, dismissed the objection, ruling that the court has jurisdiction over employment disputes, including workplace defamation.
“From the record, I find that the subject matter of the dispute bordering on workplace defamation and the manner of termination of employment raises issues of unfair labour practice in this suit, which involves issues of employment relationship as it arose from the workplace.
“Workplace Defamation, a type of defamation that can only arise in a work environment and related to the routine course of work, borders on labour relations at the workplace, which is essentially different and distinct from general defamation,” the judge ruled, according to a report by Punch.
The court found that Godspower’s recall from suspension implied his exoneration, and First Bank had no basis to report him to the CBN.
The judge faulted the bank for terminating the claimant’s employment on one ground while portraying him to regulators as having been disengaged for fraud.
Ogbuanya held, “The claimant’s grouse is not necessarily the mere act of termination of employment on the reason of ‘services no longer required’, but more of the defendant’s overreaching acts of publishing the claimant’s name and photograph in its accessible portal and sending his name to CBN for sanction, without him being indicted or the reason disclosed in his termination letter.”
In awarding damages, the judge held, “The sum of N50,000,000.00 is hereby awarded against the defendant in favour of the claimant, as compensation by way of general damages for the act of unfair labour practice.”
The judge said the wrongful publications “tarnished his cherished career and rendered him jobless and traumatised,” and consequently ordered that the publications be set aside.
“As a consequential order, the said wrongful publications are hereby set aside, and the defendant is restrained from further giving effect to its career-damaging publications against the claimant,” Ogbuanya ruled.
