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NLC Crisis: Odah Gives ultimatum for Reinstatement,
Demands Apology
Newsdiaryonline Sun Aug 21,2011
John Odah
to NLC :Refund of mysterious N8m Paid into my Zenith
Bank Account:The letter
The legal representatives of the embattled former scribe of the
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Comrade John Odah have written a
letter to the President of NLC, Comrade Abdulwahed Omar
demanding for his (Odah) reinstatement. They are also demanding
the tendering of an apology from the NLC boss over public
comments he made on the health of Comrade Odah.
In the letter entitled: “Legal demand for the reinstatement of
Comrade John Ejoha Odah, mni as General Secretary Nigeria Labour
Congress (NLC),” dated August 10, 2011 and signed by P.A. Akubo,
(SAN) of Akubo and Co Pacesetter Chambers, the lawyers argued
that the claimed re-organisation under which Odah’s appointment
was purportedly terminated was a charade.
The letter reads in part: “…the supposed official reason given
for our client’s unceremonious disengagement, to wit, “on-going
re-organisation in Congress” appears spurious and carefully
improvised. Consider this Comrade: over the years, Nigeria
Labour Congress ((NLC) has laid down procedure for
reorganization in line with its constitution. Specifically, as a
prerequisite for re-organisation, a committee ought to be put in
place and approved by the NEC of NLC and its report must be
debated and approved by the same NEC of NLC before
implementation as was done in 2000 and 2007 when NLC undertook
reorganizations.”
Akubo (SAN) argued that in the case of the reorganization that
led to the sack of Odah, “caution was thrown to the wind and
elementary procedure of reorganization inexplicably
short-circuited. Invariably, the purported termination of our
client’s appointment is manifestly flawed and irredeemably
faulty.”
The lawyers emphasized that the way and manner Odah was treated
is “shameful, an anathema and a complete antithesis of what the
NLC is known and stands for.” They therefore cautioned the NLC
to “quickly retraced its steps in order not to gamble with its
credibility.”
Odah’s lawyers concluded by demanding from the NLC the
retraction of the purported letter terminating the appointment
of Odah as General Secretary of NLC and immediately reinstate
him to that position. They equally demanded that Omar should
“apologize to him (Odah) for the needless embarrassment
occasioned our client for the scandalous disinformation vide
newspapers on his state of health.”
Prior to this letter, Comrade Odah had last week written to the
President of the NLC rejecting what he claims to be a “strange
payment” of over eight million naira into his Zenith Bank
account by the NLC. In rejecting the money, Odah stated in his
letter thus: “I became aware of this payment when I asked the
Zenith Bank for my statement of account for the month of July
2011. I have not received any correspondence from the NLC since
this strange payment was made into my account over three weeks
ago. I can however surmise that this payment is in furtherance
of actions to give effect to the purported termination of my
appointment as General Secretary of NLC.”
Odah said, it was completely unnecessary for the NLC President
to authorize the payment of any terminal benefits to him because
as he is contesting the termination of his appointment as
General Secretary.
Odah emphasized that the tactics of secretly paying terminal
benefits adopted by the current leadership of NLC under Omar is
similar to the dubious tactics that many employers had used many
times which the NLC has had course to fight against over the
years. According to Odah, the NLC defeated most employers that
adopted such underhand and unpopular tactics to terminate the
appointments of many workers.
“Comrade President, you know we have fought against this type of
underhand and dirty tactics used by some employers in all the
years of our existence as a central labour organization. How you
and your colleagues in the Congress leadership hope you would
succeed in this deception beats my imagination,” Odah stated and
while he disclosed that he had promptly deposited the sum of N8,
471, 870.00 back into Zenith Bank account number 1010360999
operated by the NLC until the issues he is contesting with
respect to the purported termination of his appointment as the
General Secretary of the NLC are resolved.
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