Former Governor Jolly Nyame has dragged the Taraba State Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), before the National Industrial Court over non-payment of his pension benefit arrears.
The matter came up on Tuesday via a garneshee proceeding before Justice Osatohanmwen Obaseki-Osaghae.
When the matter was called, counsel to Nyame, the judgment creditor, E.T Irhilure, informed the court that processes had been served on the CBN, the garneshee debtor to appear before the court to show cause why the proceeding should not be effected on the judgment debtor’s account to pay the judgment sum.
He further explained that, however, CBN had filed a preliminary objection to that effect
The counsel in addition said that they had responded to same, but were yet to serve CBN.
Irhilure equally said that the judgement debtors had served on them while in the court on Tuesday its motion on notice, which was not different from what the garneshee debtor had filed.
He, therefore, prayed for a short date in order to respond.
On their part, Emmanuel Anderifun and Caleb Ejoga, counsel to the judgement debtors and garneshee debtor respectively, did not object to the application
The court, therefore, adjourned the matter until March 16, for hearing of the application.
The court on July 12,2019 ordered the payment of the sum of N151.1 million being the unpaid pension arrears for Nyame and three others in a summary judgement.
The judgement, delivered by Justice Sanusi Kado, was for unpaid pension arrears from May 2013 to October 2015.
The other claimants in the suit were Uba Ahmadu, Abubakar Armayau and Bilkisu Danboyi.
The court in the said judgement had ordered 10 equal instalments payment commencing from July 2019 on a monthly basis until the final liquidation of the total sum.
The judgment further stated that failure of the judgment debtors to abide by the decision of the court will attract 10 per cent interest rate.
The order of the court, however, was not obeyed, hence the instituting of the garneshee proceeding by the judgment creditor.
The claimants who were former employees of the defendant upon retirement were paid the sum of N45 million out of their total pension arrears of N196 million.
They, therefore, approached the court to seek redress after every efforts to get the balance of their pension arrears failed.
