The Supreme Court has reserved judgment for April 20 in the case of 860 Nigerians employed by Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited. What will be their fate? ERIC IKHILAE reviews the case.
About eight years after Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited lodged an appeal at the Supreme Court against the May 21, 2009 judgment of the Court of Appeal, Calabar, ordering it to accept responsibility for the 860 Nigerians it employed as security guards, the apex court has scheduled judgment for April 20 this year.
The judgment will put to rest the about 18-year-old dispute on the status of the 860 Nigerians and the pains and misery to which they have been subjected since the company disengaged them under questionable circumstances when the dispute began.
Court documents revealed that the Nigerian workers were variously employed in early 1990s by Mobil in its security unit. But for unknown reasons, the company chose to refer to them as: “SPY Police of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited,” a decision that later created confusion over the actual status of the workers.
On January 23, this year, a panel of five Justices of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour, chose April 20, 2018 for judgment after parties had argued and adopted their written briefs of argument in respect to the appeal marked: SC/33/2010 lodged by Mobil.
Named as 1st to 15th respondents in the appeal (representing the 860 Nigerians) are Okon Johnson; Nkereuwem Akpe; Nsitighe Ikpam; Calistus Nwafor; Emmanuel Nwokezi; Eric Teenwi; Affiong Etim; Amangi Ala; Joseph Bamishaye; Godwin Tombra; Charles Okon; Dada Rotimi; Raji Lateef; Taiwo Laidi and Opubo Sukubo.
Other respondents, listed as 16th, 17th and 18th, are the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Commissioner of Police, Akwa Ibom State and the Nigeria Police Council (NPC).
Kayode Sofola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), adopted the appellant’s briefs on January 23 this year, urged the court to allow his client’s appeal and set aside the May 21 judgment of the Court of Appeal, Calabar, which held among others, that it was wrong for Mobil to seek to evade its responsibility in relation to the 860 Nigerians, by claiming that they were employees of the Nigeria Police Force.
Sofola insisted that the Nigerians, including the 15 listed in court papers (as representing the others) were supernumerary police officers, because they were administered the oath of allegiance, dressed in police uniform, availed all other police paraphernalia and trained by the police.
He noted that the Nigerian workers described themselves, in one of their affidavits, as supernumerary police officers, which amounted to an admission that they were not employees of his client.
Sofola also faulted the mode of commencing the case at the trial court, which he said, led to the denial of fair hearing to his client.
In his notice of objection, Sofola argued that since the facts in the case were hotly disputed, the suit ought not to have been commenced by way of originating summons. He said the mode of commencing the suit denied his client the opportunity to lead oral evidence to support its claims.
In a contrary argument, lawyer to the 1st to 15 respondents, Femi Falana (SAN) faulted Sofola’s claim that his clients were denied fair hearing. He argued that there was nowhere in the appellant’s brief any evidence to show that its right to fair hearing was violated.
Falana noted that the appellant did not, at the Court of Appeal, challenged the mode with which the suit was commenced at the trial court and could not now do so at the apex court. He added that the argument on fair hearing and the case cited by Sofola in support were irrelevant to the case.
On the status of his clients, Falana argued that Sofola failed to provide any evidence that Mobil complied with the laid down procedure for the appointment of SPY policemen by the Nigeria Police Force.
He noted that Mobil admitted that it conducted examination for the employment of the applicants at the trail court (the Nigerian workers), issued them with employment letters, sent them to the police for training and continued to pay their salaries through the police.
Falana said: “It was Mobil Producing the conducted the examination for those they wanted to employment as security guards. Those, who passed, were issued employment letters by the company, but later sent to Police College, Calabar.
As against the claim by Sofola that the Nigerians earn their salaries from the Nigeria Police Force, Falana argued that the salaries of the Nigerians were paid by Mobil, but through the police.
He added: “When this question arose, as to the status of the 1 – 15 respondents, the IGP clarified the issue that the responsibilities of Police regarding the SPY is mainly on training, upon the request of the employer.
“On the face of the letter of employment, salaries and allowances paid by the appellant (Mobil) through the police, the findings of the lower court (Court of Appeal, Calabar) cannot be faulted.
“The procedure for the application for SPY requires that an application be sent to the IGP, who will send it to the President for approval. That requirement was not complied with,” Falana said.
He urged the court to reject the appeal and uphold the earlier decision of the Court of Appeal, Calabar on the issue.
Lawyer to the IGP, Commissioner of Police, Akaw Ibom and NPC, Sebastian Ozoani did not file any process in response to the appeal, but did so in respect of the appeal by his clients, marked: SC/378/2010.
Ozoani, while arguing his client’s appeal, faulted the contract between Mobil and the Nigerians. He, also faulted the letter of employment issued to them by Mobil.
He said the letters did not contain the necessary elements required globally to qualify them (the employment letters) as valid ones.
He urged the court to hold that the workers (listed as 2nd to 16th defendants in the second appeal) are employees of the Nigeria Police.
In a counter argument, Falana argued that the appeal by the police lacked merit and was intended to waste the court’s time.
Falana noted that the IGP, Commissioner of Police, Akwa Ibom State and NPC did not file any process when the case was before the Court of Appeal.
He contended that “the case is about private contract between the 1st res and the 2nd to 16 res. It has nothing to do with the police. The IGP has said the police has no business with them beyond training them”.
In 2000 a dispute arose about the status of the security guards, with Mobil claiming to have transferred their employment to the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). Mobil claimed it engaged them as SPY police personnel, and not actual staff; a claim the affected workers disputed, with some of them refusing to be transferred out of their stations.
They alleged being victimised, with some sacked unceremoniously for insisting on right to being entitled to be treated as other employees of Mobil. They alleged that, aside from being subjected to harsh working condition, they were compelled to sign a document identified as “Mobil Producing Nigeria status agreement for supernumerary police service condition agreement.”
The workers said although some of them succumbed and endorsed the documents, others stood their ground, and later sought the protection of the court by filing a suit at the Federal High Court, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, marked: FHC/UY/CS/2004.
In a judgment on January 24, 2006, Justice Gladys Olotu ruled in favour of Mobil. The judge said, among others, that although the Mobil did not fully comply with the requirement under the Police Act, in recruiting SPY policemen, it could be assumed that it complied, having substantially complied with some of the regulations
The Nigerian workers appealed Justice Olotu’s decision at the Court of Appeal, Calabar, Cross River State, which rendered its judgment on May 21, 2009 a nullity.
A three-man panel of the Appeal Court, in its May 21, 2009 judgment, held among others, that the Nigerian workers were Mobil’s employees and ordered it to assume its responsibilities as they relate to the Nigerian workers. The panel comprised Justice Kumai Akaahs, Jean Omokri and Theresa Orji-Abadua.
Justice Orji-Abadua observed, in the lead judgment, that: “It is clear in exhibits D and E (Mobil’s letters to the Police, requesting training for its security recruit) that the 1st respondent (Mobil) was referring to their own security men as Supernumerary Police recruit, and it wanted them to be trained by the Nigeria Police in respect of which it made application to the Commissioner of Police in charge of Cross River State.
“In exhibit F (a November 1, 1996 letter by Mobil’s Security Advisor, B. O. B. Duke), the 1st respondent requested the Commissioner of Police to recruit its security personnel into the Police Supernumerary outfit.
“It is clear therein that as at the date exhibit F was written, the appellants (the affected staff) had not, according to the 1st respondent, been recruited as supernumerary police officers.
“It is also clear, in exhibit C2, that it is the 1st respondent, in the figment of its imagination and its hallucinating state, that offered the appellants employment in its security unit and described them as SPY Constables.
“It is clear as crystal, in the processes filed before the lower court (Federal High Court) and the documents exhibited, that the 1st respondent and officers of the 2nd to 4th respondents (IGP, Akwa Ibom State Police Commissioner and Nigeria Police Council) were oblivious of the requirement of the law or its stipulations in so far as the requirements, employment/appointment of supernumerary police officers were concerned.
“Undoubtedly, the hood does not make a monk. The fact that the appellants were described as SPY Police Mobil Producing Nigeria and were adorned with Nigeria Police uniforms and other paraphernalia cannot make them Nigeria policemen.
“As a matter of fact, the appellants were made to believe they were being recruited into the Security Unit of the 1st respondent as the SPY police of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, but not as Nigeria Supernumerary Police officers,” she said.
Justice Orji-Abadua further held that it was immaterial whether or not the appellants thought they were Nigeria Police SPY, and that what confers the status of a police on a person is not the wearing of uniform or being called a police, but the process of the person’s recruitment in accordance with the law creating his employment.
She noted that: “Section 18(1) & (2) of the Police Act expressly stated the way and manner a supernumerary police officer will be appointed upon the application of the person desiring to take advantage of the services of police for protection of his property. It is clear that any step short of the ones prescribed by the Police Act will be null and void.
“The appellants were not employed by the Nigeria Police Force and then appointed as Supernumerary Police Officers by the Police Service Commission on the directive of the Inspector general of Police for the protection of the 1st respondent’s property as envisaged by Section 18(1) & (2) of the Police Act.
“They were and still are the employees of the 1st respondent since there was no affidavit evidence indicating that the appellants’ employment had been determined by the 1st respondent,” Justice Orji-Abadua said.
It is this Court of Appeal’s decision that Mobil appealed to the Supreme Court and on which judgment has been reserved for April 20, this year.
