Nurses drag Benue State Governor to court over illegal retirement

No fewer than nine Chief Nursing Officers employed by the Benue State Hospitals Management Board, who were allegedly forced into retirement, have dragged the government under the leadership of Samuel Ortom to the National Industrial Court, Makurdi Division.

The affected nurses are seeking an order restraining the state government or their agents from unjustly interfering with their employments.

The aggrieved chief nurses, in a suit labeled, NICN/MKD/2016 and filed through their lawyer, Pepe Dajo, also prayed the court to restore their names on the hospital payroll with immediate effect until their compulsory retirement in October 2017.

The claimants are also asking the court to direct the board to pay them their monthly salary arrears and allowances from February, 2016 to the date of judgment or till October, 2017 as the case may be.

Counsel for the claimants, Dajo, who addressed newsmen in Makurdi, said his clients who were all Set 6 graduates of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Makurdi were offered both temporary and permanent letters of appointments as staff nurses on grade level 7 step 1 dated March 11, 1982 and wondered why his clients were suddenly summoned by the defendant to be informed that their time in service had expired since November 1, 2014.

According to Dajo, going by both the letters of temporary and permanent appointments issued to the claimants in 1982, it was only logical, with regards to the pension and gratuity law of the state, that his clients would only go on compulsory retirement upon reaching 60 years of age or attaining 35 years of service with the board.

He disclosed that many members of Set 6 of the school that got employment with the board on the same date with the sacked nine members were not listed to proceed on retirement.