The Court of Appeal, Abuja, has ordered the Independent Corrupt Practices & Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to reinstate Barrister Ayobami Adepoju to his position in the commission.
Adepoju was among four officials sacked in 2019, following allegations of unruly behaviour, negligence of duty, and insubordination, among others.
Delivering the lead judgment on Wednesday on behalf of the three-member panel, Justice Adebukola Banjoko dismissed the appeal filed by the ICPC for lacking in merit.
The appellate court in the appeal marked, CA/ABJ/CV/764/2022, upheld the decision of Justice Oyebiola Oyewumi of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) Abuja, which declared the sack of Adepoju as unlawful, null and void.
Justice Oyewumi in a judgement marked NICN/ABJ/310/2019 and delivered on October 19, 2020, held that the ICPC did not follow due process in its investigation and prosecution of Adepoju before terminating his appointment.
He said having issued queries to him which he responded to, he should have also been allowed to defend himself before the four-member adhoc committee set up to investigate his case. Besides, the court held that only three out of the four members signed its report.
The judge described the action of the commission vindictive and against international best practices.
Justice Oyewumi therefore set aside the letter of termination, dated August 9, 2019, signed by Mr. Samuel Lodam of ICPC’s Human Resources department and ordered that Adepoju be paid all his outstanding allowances since his sack.
In addition, the court ordered that Adepoju be allowed to participate in promotion exercises due to him during the period of his sack as well as future exercises.
The ICPC on August 9, 2019 dismissed four officials for various disciplinary offences ranging from insubordination to compromise of investigation.
According to a lated dated August 20, 2019, the decision was reached after an investigation involving 18 officials of the commission, titled “Decision of the Commission on Disciplinary Cases”.
The affected officials were accused of immoral and unruly behaviour, violation of oath of secrecy, refusal to take or carry out lawful instruction from superior officer, negligence, deliberate delay in treating official documents, receipt of unlawful allowance, compromising investigation, dishonesty and refusal to go on transfer.
According to the ICPC, some officials were investigated and exonerated of the misconduct brought against them, while six of them were either dismissed, had their appointments terminated, or faced salary cuts.
Some of those dismissed included Celsus Ukpong, Gloria Elit, Ayobami Adepoju and Saidu Ali, while Iroha Kalu Collins was demoted from Grade Level 15 to Grade Level 13 for dishonesty and refusal to carry out lawful instruction from superior officers. S.P Binga was also sanctioned with salary reduction for allegedly compromising the investigation.
