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Hon. Justice Sinmisola Adeniyi of the Abuja Judicial Division of the National Industrial Court has ordered the Defendants to pay Mr. Oprite and 26 others their outstanding salaries in the sum of N423,729,829.77 (Four Hundred and Twenty-Three Million, Seven Hundred and Twenty-Nine Thousand, Eight Hundred and Twenty-Nine Naira, Seventy-Seven Kobo) for services rendered as members of staff of the Road Sector Development Team (RSDT) between October 2022 to the 14th of May, 2024.
The Court further declared that the failure of the Honourable Minister of Works to pay Mr Oprite and 26 others their outstanding salaries in the sum of N423.7m under the guise of the closure of the World Bank and African Development Bank-funded projects amounted to a flagrant breach of the terms and conditions of their employment.
Justice Adeniyi also awarded Mr Oprite and 26 others the sum of N5m as general damages, N500k as costs of the action, and directed that the judgment sums be paid by the defendants within 30 days.
From facts, the Claimants, Mr Oprite and 26 others, comprising members of staff of the Road Sector Development Team (RSDT), had submitted that they were employed under the Federal Ministry of Works to implement the Road Sector Development and Maintenance Programme and rendered services between October 2022 and May 2024, but were not paid their outstanding salaries before they were dissolved.
Mr Oprite and 26 others averred that, although the World Bank and African Development Bank-funded projects had ended, they continued, with the consent and authority of the Federal Ministry of Works, to execute and manage several ongoing federal road projects until the issuance of the letter dissolving the RSDT on 14 May 2024.
Mr Oprite and 26 others further contended that despite repeated demands and correspondence requesting payment of their outstanding salaries, the Honourable Minister of Works and the Attorney General of the Federation failed to settle the sums due for the services they rendered.
In defence, the Honourable Minister of Works maintained that Mr Oprite and 26 others were employees of the Road Sector Development Team and not of the Federal Ministry of Works, and that the RSDT was a semi-autonomous and self-accounting organisation funded by the International Development Association and later by the African Development Bank.
The Honourable Minister of Works further argued that the Road Sector Development Team ought to have been joined as a necessary party to the proceedings, insisting that there was no contract between Mr Oprite and 26 others and the Ministry of Works and that the Federal Ministry of Works could not be held liable for their outstanding salaries.
The Attorney General of the Federation stated that Mr Oprite and 26 others failed to prove their case to warrant the grant of the reliefs sought.
In opposition, learned Senior Counsel to Mr Oprite and 26 others, Adedayo Adedeji, SAN, argued that the Road Sector Development Team was established, regulated and ultimately dissolved by the Federal Ministry of Works, lacked a separate legal personality, and that the letters of appointment of his clients together with the RSDT Framework clearly established an employment relationship with the Federal Ministry of Works.
Learned Senior Counsel further submitted that having retained the services of Mr Oprite and 26 others, they were assigned to continue managing federal road projects after September 2022, and accepted the benefit of those services without objection, the Honourable Minister of Works and others were estopped from denying liability for the outstanding salaries.
Delivering judgment after carefully evaluating the pleadings, documentary evidence and submissions of counsel, Hon. Justice Sinmisola Adeniyi held that the Road Sector Development Team was created, regulated and dissolved by the Federal Ministry of Works, lacked a separate legal personality, and that the evidence established that the Federal Ministry of Works was the employer of Mr. Oprite and 26 others, thereby rejecting the Honourable Minister of Works and others' arguments on absence of privity of contract and non-joinder of the Road Sector Development Team.
Justice Adeniyi held that the principle upon which estoppel by conduct is founded is that the law should not permit an unjust departure by a party from an assumption of fact which he has caused another party to adopt for the purpose of their legal relations.
The Court further held that having retained Mr. Oprite and 26 others in service, accepted the benefit of the projects executed after the cessation of external funding, and failed to issue any notice of fund cessation, they were estopped from relying on the closure of the World Bank and African Development Bank funded projects as a basis for refusing payment of their outstanding salaries.
The Court found that the Honourable Minister of Works and others neither disputed that Mr Oprite and 26 others rendered services between October 2022 and May 2024 nor controverted the outstanding salaries.
The Court held that Mr Oprite and 26 others successfully proved their case on the balance of probabilities and consequently granted the declaratory and monetary reliefs sought.
“It is unconscionable for the Defendants to have retained the services of the Claimants and accepted the services of road projects rendered by the Claimants for a period of two years, and failed to pay their salaries for the said period.” The Court ruled.
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