Woman Wins 13.5 Million Naira Damages After Unlawful Sack

Jennifer Adighije Okolo, the creative director of House of Silk, sued her former bosses and won.

According to a report, an Industrial Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos gave a ruling in favour of Jennifer against her former employer, Helios Towers, a telecom firm.

In the court ruling, the Telecom firm would need to pay, Jennifer Adighije-Okolo N13.55 million for unfairly terminating her employment. Jennifer, before the sack, was the company's Head of Operations & Planning.

The Company had terminated their former employee's appointment for what they had termed poor performance (performing below par), Jennifer not satisfied with how she was sacked had taken the company to the Industrial Court, Ikoyi, Lagos seeking for redress.

The end result of the case is her winning N9 Million which is the sum total of her salary from between February 1, 2010 to January 31, 2012.

Apart from the N9 Million, the defendant would also be paying the claimant another N4.5 Million for damages and also awarded in the claimant's favour is another N50,000 costs.

According to Jennifer, she had been graded excellent by her immediate boss in her yearly appraisal, only for another appraisal body (the management review team) to have given an appraisal of below average, consequent upon which her appointment was terminated.

In his Judgement, Justice O. Abaseki-Osaghae said: "It is the law that an employer is not bound to give reason for terminating the appointment of its employee but where the employer gives a reason, the law imposes on him a duty to establish the reason to the satisfaction of the court."

"I find that the said management review team was acting out a script when, spitefully, maliciously and without any basis, wrote on the claimant's appraisal form 'Below expectation' and recommended that her appointment be terminated."