The Presiding Judge of the Uyo Judicial Division of the National Industrial Court, Hon. Justice Salisu Danjidda, has ruled that the actions of the Nigerian Ports Authority in withholding salaries, allowances, and other benefits from Mr. Kuje Godwin and 18 other workers were unlawful and amounted to a breach of their employment contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Court ordered the Nigerian Ports Authority to immediately deploy the affected workers to their appropriate departments in line with their appointment letters. It further directed that they be placed on the correct cadre levels and paid all outstanding salaries, wages, allowances, leave bonuses, Christmas bonuses, and other entitlements from April 1, 2007, up to the date of judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice Danjidda also awarded \u20a620 million in general damages and \u20a62 million as costs in favour of the claimants, citing the financial hardship and inconvenience caused by the non-payment of their entitlements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Court rejected the argument by the Nigerian Ports Authority that the workers were lawfully disengaged. It held that no valid termination was proven and ruled that their employment, which had statutory flavour, could not be ended without following due legal procedure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The claimants had argued that they were employed as Technical Trainees in 2003 under pensionable service, completed training in 2007, and were placed on salaries, allowances, and pension contributions\u2014indicating a formal employment relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They further stated that despite this, payments stopped in April 2007 without any formal termination, even though they participated in staff verification exercises in 2006 and 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In response, the Nigerian Ports Authority claimed that the workers were disengaged following directives linked to the closure of its training school by the Federal Ministry of Transport, and that they were not entitled to salaries since they rendered no services after April 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Authority also argued that the claimants were unconfirmed employees and that the case was statute-barred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, counsel for the claimants argued that appointment letters, identity cards, salaries, and pension contributions clearly showed that the workers were employees\u2014not trainees\u2014and that failure to terminate their probation meant they were automatically confirmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After reviewing all evidence, the Court held that the reliance on the repealed Ports Act 1990 was invalid and confirmed its jurisdiction over the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justice Danjidda further ruled that the conduct of the employer\u2014issuing ID cards, paying salaries, and enrolling workers in pension schemes\u2014clearly established an employment relationship, which could not be denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Court concluded that the claimants were full employees by conduct and entitled to all benefits due to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Presiding Judge of the Uyo Judicial Division of the National Industrial Court, Hon. Justice Salisu Danjidda, has ruled that the actions of the Nigerian Ports Authority in withholding salaries, allowances, and other benefits from Mr. Kuje Godwin and 18 other workers were unlawful and amounted to a breach of their employment contracts. The Court ordered the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":90655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-91402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/industral-court.jpeg?fit=398%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91403,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91402\/revisions\/91403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dnllegalandstyle.com\/dnl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}