Five policemen from Akwa Ibom State, said to have been wrongfully dismissed from service in 2007, have appealed to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and Senator Aniekan Bassey for intervention

They also appealed to other National Assembly members from the state to take cognizance of their plight and ensure their reinstatement and payment of arrears of salaries, as well as other sundry allowances, from 2007 to date.

The affected officers, namely Sunday Okon, Anthony Ebong, Joseph Ede, Victor Ibe and Uduak Sampson, who joined the service in 2003 based on their trade professions, were dismissed in 2007, barely four years later, on the grounds that they were illiterates, despite having undergone training and been certified for the job.

Speaking with our correspondent in Uyo on Wednesday, the spokesman for the officers, Ibe, said that after several appeals that fell on deaf ears, they had to take the matter to court, which ordered their reinstatement since 2019.

He said, “We were forced to drag the NPF and Police Service Commission to the National Industrial Court in suit No. NICN/UY/08/2018, having exhausted all the channels to plead for our reinstatement.

“The court, in 2019, ruled in our favour, declaring the purported disengagement null and void and ordered that we should be reinstated into the ranks we would have been but for the dismissal. The court also ordered that all arrears of our salaries and allowances be paid to us.

“So we are pleading with our Senate President, Godswill Akpabio and the Senate representing Uyo senatorial district, Senator Aniekan Bassey and other National Assembly members to come to our aid.”

According to a Certified True Copy of the judgment obtained by our correspondent in Uyo, the judge, Justice M. A. Namtari, ruled, “accordingly, the claimants’ case succeeds in the following terms: It is hereby declared that the dismissal of the claimants by the defendants from the Nigeria Police Force without compliance with service rules and without due process is unlawful and unwarranted.

“The defendants are hereby ordered to immediately reinstate the claimants into the Nigeria Police Force on the ranks they would have been but for their unlawful dismissal from service.

“The defendants are hereby ordered and directed to pay each of the claimants their salaries, allowances and other entitlements from January 2007 till the date of their reinstatement into the Nigeria Police Force.

“This judgment should be complied with within 90 days from today. Judgment entered accordingly. I make no order as to cost.’’

Ibe lamented, however, that seven years after the judgment, nothing has been done to obey the court’s ruling despite repeated correspondence to successive Inspector Generals of Police and the PSC.

He expressed frustrations in the pursuit of justice, saying that all their efforts for the PSC to obey the court order have been unsuccessful, recalling that former senator Bassey Albert had brought their matter to the floor of the Senate, but nothing was done eventually, even as they noted that most of their colleagues who knew people had been reinstated.

Narrating the hardship and inability to get another job, Ibe said, “We are dying here, life has not been easy with us at all. It’s by the grace of God that we are still alive; most of our colleagues have died in the process of litigation. We are not illiterate; we can read and write. Besides, we were employed based on a trade test because we came in as specialists.

“We are begging our dear brother, the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, Senator Aniekan Bassey, Hon Clement Jimbo, Mark Esset and all our lawmakers at the National Assembly to come to our rescue. All we want is for the PSC to obey the court order since the case was not appealed.” (The PUNCH)