A salesman, Hassan Okpetu Eddy-King, has prayed the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) in Lagos to compel a firm, SC Johnson and Son Nigeria Limited, to pay him N50 million for wrongful termination of employment.
SC Johnson and Son and one of its line managers, Patience Ogboji, are joined as first and second defendants in the suit.
Eddy-King’s statement of claim, filed October 19 by his lawyer Peters O. Agboola, said the claimant alleged that his employment was terminated on July 1 for his refusal to submit to immoral advancement and harassment.
The claimant said it was also the punishment for his whistle-blowing of “criminal and fraudulent/negligent acts” against the first defendant.
He averred that upon the termination of his employment, he sought audience with the foreign and international partners of the first defendant “but nothing was done”.
When efforts to settle the matter failed, the claimant said he demanded from the defendants, via a letter on September 14, which was acknowledged by the defendant’s lawyer, Dr. Joseph Nwobike (SAN).
Eddy-King said Nwobike’s reply on September 16 denied the allegations against the first defendant, adding that the firm “complied with the extant labour laws in terminating the claimant’s employment”.
The claimant also averred that the first defendant condoned the infractions “which caused his loss of job, legitimate expectations, rise in career path and dented his spirit to fight corruption and resist sexual harassment at the workplace”.
Eddy-King is seeking a declaration that the termination of employment “without being found guilty of any misconduct or poor performance or of any reasons related to these two instances is a violation of item 78 of the defendant’s employee handbook and therefore illegal unlawful and wrongful”.
The claimant also asked the court to declare that his sack “was induced, occasioned and traceable to his refusal to submit to acts of immoral sexual advancement and sexual harassment, which occurred in the course of the employment of the claimant for which the claimant is entitled to be compensated”.
He is seeking “…an order for the payment of N50 million, being the sum the claimant would have earned at the retirement age of 60 years, if the employment had not been terminated and interest on the sum at the rate of 10 per cent from July 1 till judgment is delivered and thereafter at the rate of 21 per cent till judgment is liquidated”.