BY AGNES NWORIE, ABAKALIKI
The National Industrial Court of Nigeria, Abakaliki Division in Ebonyi State has ordered Incorporated Trustees of the Seventh Day Adventist Church to pay, in full, all retirement benefits to a sacked pastor of the Church.
Pastor Joseph Obasi-Imo who served the Church for 39 years from January 1, 1973 to December 31, 2012, in a suit marked NICN/ABK/03/2021, dragged the Incorporated Trustees, the president and treasurer, Eastern Nigerian Union conference of the Church, as first, second, third and fourth defendants, respectively, before Justice Oluwakayode Arowosegbe, and asked the court to compel them to pay his entitlements.
The claimant told the court, through his counsel, I .N. Agha, that when the time came for him to receive his full retirement benefits, some of the defendants conspired and reduced the benefits without justification by issuing a cheque of N2,124,000 to him on March 27, 2020, instead of the sum of N4,162,400.
He sought a declaration of the court that the reduction of his retirement fund benefits and undue withholding of his pension by the defendants without any justifiable reasons amounted to fraud and for the court to further declare that he was entitled to his full retirement fund benefits and pension as tabulated by the West Central African Division Retirement Plan Committee as a retiree of the Church.
The claimant also sought N10 million damages against the defendants for unlawful withholding of his entitlements and exposing him and his dependants to untold hardship.
Responding, the defendants, through their counsel, C.A. Unah, said the claimant was not a retired pastor as claimed. They said his appointment was terminated via a letter dated 25th August 2010 on the grounds of disobedience to his employer by refusing to obey his transfer order from Amasiri District in Ebonyi State to Umunneochi Extension in Abia State.
“The claimant refused to obey the directive to hand over the property of the 1st defendant (Seventh Day Adventist Church) to the President of the East Central conference and continued to remain in the illegal occupation of Amasiri district parsonage till 27th March 2020 in addition to illegal collection and usage of the tithes and offerings in sum of (N1,914,464.96) as reflected in audit report of the Church,” they said.
The trial judge, Justice Oluwakayode Arowesegbe, while delivering judgement, ordered the defendants to pay the claimant his retirement benefits and withheld pension in full but rejected the payment of N10 million damages.
“It is definitely wrong for the defendants to withhold his pension for the simple reason that he instigated the arrest of the officers of the local branch on a frame-up allegation of conversion of his lump pension sum. While that act is very wrong and reprehensible on the part of the claimant, it is no justification to stop his pension and ask him to travel to the headquarters of the defendants outside Nigeria to renegotiate how to be receiving his pension.
“I refuse to grant cost to the claimant. To grant him damages and cost would be an encouragement to continue to take laws into his hands instead of going to court early. He had used police to harass the defendants for a purely civil matter. Both sides are to bear their costs.
“I therefore order that the backlog of the unpaid pension be calculated and paid to the claimant in full within 30 days of this judgement through the same manner of paying it before the interregnum or electronically,” Justice Arowosegbe ordered.
