BY ADEYEMI AKANJI, ABUJA – Former Councilors, numbering about 171 who served between 2013 and 2015 in Yobe State, have dragged the government before the National Industrial Court (NIC) demanding the settlement of their outstanding entitlements.
Accordingly, the Court sitting in Bauchi has therefore summoned all the 171 former Councilors to appear before it to prove their case.
The former Councilors are demanding that the Yobe State Government should pay them their entitlements as contained in all relevant laws of service.
When the matter came for mention on Monday, the leader of the former Councilors, Hon Ali Gaje Gashua, said all 171 of them served diligently throughout their tenure without any blemish.
Gaje lamented that the State government has refused to pay them what legitimately belongs to them since they completed their tenure, adding that the amount accruable to each of them ranges from N2m to N4m depending on the office held by the individual.
He also said that it then became expedient for them to come to the Court as a last resort considering the fact that many other political office holders in the state were promptly settled while they were exempted.
The affected former Councilors prayed the Court to intervene in their case and compel the Yobe state government to pay them their entitlements.
Gaje also lamented that a letter of withdrawal from the case was purportedly written by some faceless people in order to thwart their efforts saying all of them are committed to the matter and will see it to the end.
Speaking with journalists on the matter, Alhaji Zubair Kansila Bursali said that they are appealing to the state government to have mercy and pay their entitlement to enable them to have a means of taking care of their families.
Also speaking, Garba Sarki Potiskum said that as a person living with a disability, he has never stopped struggling to seek justice to claim what rightly belongs to them and assured that they will pursue the case to its logical conclusion.
The presiding Judge, Justice Mustapha Tijjani ordered that all of the plaintiffs should appear before him to enable the Court to take judicial notice of them and hear from them before giving judgment.
Following the exchange of arguments between Ahmed Igoche for the plaintiffs and Don Aguse for the Yobe state government as the defendant, Justice Tijjani directed all the former Councilors to appear before the Court on November 24, 2022, to give witness before the court.
