All is set for the arraignment of two officials of the Oil and Gas Free Zone Authority (OGFZA) for alleged forgery.
They have been slated for arraignment at the Wuse Zone 2 Magistrate Court sitting in Abuja.
The defendants, staff of OGFA, include the Head of Legal Services and Secretary to OGFZA’s Board, Mr. Wasiu Sule and Mr Alenju Ngofa, who is the Human Resource Head of the organisation, were alleged to have falsified some documents with the intentions to bringing to ridicule and cause the complainant to lose his job.
The defendants were alleged to have forged documents 10 years ago which caused the complainant to lose his job.
This was however found out to be untrue and the documents they presented to back their allegations were found to be forged.
The plaintiff in the matter, Olufumilayo David Omosule, a former employee of OGFZA, accused the defendants of deliberate and willful attempt to discredit his personality by plotting and carrying out a connivance to falsify documents with the intentions to bringing him to ridicule and made him lose his job.
Omosule had been locked in legal battle with his employers, the OGFZA over the legality or otherwise of the his suspension from office as the Abuja Office Manager of the organisation, following the petition he wrote against some management staff to highlight some allegation of corruption against the officials.
In one of his prayers before the court, Omosule alleged that the defendants wilfully and maliciously distorted his records to appear as though he does not possess any requisite qualification to be employed at OGFZA or any qualification at all to be considered for promotion.
He insisted that the action of the defendants was tantamount to forgery and falsification of documents contrary to Section 363 and 364 of the Penal Code, which is detrimental and injurious to his person.
The agency had via a letter dated April 18, 2011, suspended Omosule as the Manager of its Abuja office, on the grounds that he refused to comply with its letter dated Dec. 3, 2010, which had directed him to present the originals of his credentials for verification.
Omosule, however, refuted the claim of the authority, stating that he had suffered a terrible fire accident that consumed the originals of his credentials, but made available to the organisation, Certified True Copies (CTCs) of his educational certificates /credentials, including GCE ‘O Level certificates and degree certificates as instructed.
Omosule had claimed that the originals of his credentials were misplaced in untraceable circumstances as at 2010 when the report to submit originals was made.
He averred that the CTCs of his certificates submitted to the agency were certified by the issuing institutions, which included West African Examination Council and the University of Ado-Ekiti, then Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti respectively.
The plaintiff is therefore praying for a pronouncement by the court that he was still a staff of the organisation and entitled to all the rights, privileges and benefits due to him by reason of his employment.
He is praying the court for an order directing the defendants to reinstate him to the position of a Director, on grade level 17, a position he claimed his contemporaries were occupying currently.
In the same vein, Omosule is seeking for the order of the court to direct the agency to pay all his outstanding salaries, benefits and entitlement since 2011 when he was suspended from office.
Omosule is asking the court to order his employers to pay him the sum of N50 million as exemplary and general damages for the period he had been laid off from work.
He therefore prayed the court to cause the defendants to explain why they carried out the act. He also prayed the court to order the defendants to pay him compensation for the demages done to his personality and lose of his job.
The matter is before Magistrate Mabel Segun-Bello of Wise 2, Abuja.
The court had, on March 16, gave the Commissioner of Police, FCT Command, three weeks to produce the defendants for arraignment.
The court gave the order after counsel to the complainant, Nkereuwem Akpan, informed the court that the accused persons had evaded service of court processes on them despite several attempts.
They were first to be arraigned on April 26, 2021, but was scuttled because of the nationwide strike action called by the Judiciary Staff Union, (JUSUN).
Due to the absence of the trial judge on July 23, 2021, their arraignment was also stalled for the second time.
That necessitated the Magistrate to fix Auust 31st, 2021, for the their arraignment.
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