Musiliu Akinsanya, a former chairman of the Lagos State Parks and Management Committee, has continued to disregard the law in acting as national president of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), a trade union of transport workers in the country.
In November 2024, a Court of Appeal in Abuja affirmed an earlier National Industrial Court of Nigeria judgment pronouncing Tajudeen Ibikunle Baruwa as president of the union. Baruwa had served for four years and he was to be serving his second term, having been reelected in August 2023, three months to the termination of his first tenure as enunciated by the union’s constitution.
But some members of the union, led by Najeem Usman Yasin, a former president of the same union and current chairman of its Board of Trustees (BoT), disputed Baruwa’s re-election, causing the police in the Federal Capital Territory to arrest and detain him many times.
Yasin unilaterally dissolved the National Administrative Council led by Baruwa and then facilitated the setting up of a National Caretaker Committee to administer the union. At this point, Baruwa and 13 others, including the NURTW as a juristic personality, headed to the National Industrial Court.
INDUSTRIAL COURT’S CONCLUSION
Baruwa and others, referred to in the case as claimants, filed their case, marked NICN/ABJ/263/2023, on September 28, 2023, against Yasin and six others referred to as defendants. After arguments by both parties, the court delivered a judgment in favour of the claimants on March 11, 2024, according to a certified copy of the judgment obtained by FIJ.
Justice O. O. Oyewumi of the National Industrial Court collapsed the 10 and 11 distinct issues for determination submitted to the court by the claimants and defendants separately into four.
ISSUE ONE: The first issue to be ruled upon was “Whether the Claimants’ action as presently constituted is competent to give the Court the necessary vires over this action? If this is answered in the positive”.
The defendants argued that the court was incompetent to hear the case because it was commenced through an improper application. But the judge rejected their opposition, saying they failed to attach an affidavit to disclose the facts they were advancing.
“Failure of the defendants to file an affidavit to back up their grounds of objection which has delved into the facts of the case having left the realm of the law is fatal to the objection,” Justice Oyewumi ruled, dispensing with the first issue.
ISSUE TWO: Are the names of the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th and 14th claimants are liable to be struck out from this action?
In the course of the proceedings, the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th and 14th claimants (Bello Adamu, Eugene Eze Job, Prince Isah Dahiru Usman, Suleiman Adamu, Muhammed Bello Madu and NURTW) sought to pull out, saying they did not consent to the case. It was based on their withdrawal application that the judge formulated the second issue for determination.
In his ruling, the judge said that even though the law permits a co-claimant to challenge the inclusion of their name in a case, there are exceptions. Where that person is a necessary party “without whom an action cannot be effectually and effectively determined”, the challenge becomes a nullity.
“Thus the application to strike [out] the name of a co-claimant will not succeed automatically, as it was not a matter of course to allow a co-claimant to withdraw and have his name struck out at any time,” the judge ruled.
Furthermore, the judge found that 9th claimant Muhammed Bello Madu appeared in the early stage of the litigation and identified himself in court, without equivocation, as the 9th claimant. Therefore, his claim that he did not give his consent to the case was surprising.
“If he never gave his consent and was not aware of the pendency of this suit, then what was he doing in court on the 24th day of October, 2023 and identified himself as the 9th claimant?” the judge asked.
As far as the second issue was concerned, the judge found that those seeking to be removed from the suit were indispensable to the proper determination of the case, “hence the need for them to remain parties in this suit”.
“It is settled law that the main reason for making a person a party as stated earlier is so that he would be bound by the outcome of the action and in which case the questions to be determined in the action would be such that could not be effectually and completely fairly settled without him,” the judge stated on Page 32 of the judgment, specifically adding in Page 33: “Issue two is thus resolved against them [the six claimants claiming to be unaware of the suit].”
ISSUE THREE: The arguments on the third issue: Whether paragraphs 13, 15c, 17, 29, 30 and 31a and b of the defendants’ counter-affidavit are liable to be struck out, were treated briefly.
Baruwa and his co-claimants implored the court to strike out paragraphs 13, 15(c), 17, 29, 30 and 31(a) and (b) from a counter-affidavit filed by the defendants for containing “extraneous matter including legal conclusions, arguments, speculative conjectures and opinions irrelevant” against Section 115 (2) the Evidence Act, which states: “An affidavit shall not contain extraneous matter, by way of objection, prayer or legal argument or conclusion.”
The judge concluded that those paragraphs truly offended the provision of the Evidence Act and were struck out accordingly. In the same vein, he held that expunging them from the records would “not inexorably have dismal or caustic consequence on the Counter Affidavit” because its remaining paragraphs were enough to sustain the defendants’ position.
ISSUE FOUR: The last issue, “whether or not the claimants have proven the questions posed for determination of this court to be entitled to the reliefs sought”, which was the livewire of the case, was treated extensively.
The claimants argued that Yasin’s role as chairman of the NURTW BoT was advisory alone, per their constitution, and as such, lacked the power to dissolve the administrative council or take far-reaching decisions on the daily affairs of the union.
Article 6 of the NURTW Constitution says that the BoT at various tiers “shall include” offering “advice on the administration and policy direction of the Union in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution”. It shall also mediate in misunderstandings that may arise from time to time between the Union and any government or security institutions.
The claimants argued that Yasin’s BoT had not been inaugurated at the time he presided over the meeting which illegally dissolved the Baruwa-led council. But the court rejected this argument.
The court also found that the decision to constitute the caretaker committee was not taken at any BoT meeting and “the decision to constitute a Caretaker Committee cannot be imputed to the 1st defendant [Yasin] as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees going by the content” of the supplied exhibits. “I so hold,” the judge ruled.
The judge considered whether Baruwa and others were validly elected for a second term. Elected national leaders of the union emerge, per the constitution, through what is called “Quadrennial National Delegate Conference”. The defendant alleged that no such conference was held to produce the Baruwa-led council.
Baruwa is from Ogun State in the southwestern region of the country, where most states had proscribed the NURTW. For this reason, according to the defendants, he could not have been validly nominated from the zone for the position of the president.
The court trashed this contention by referencing its settled position that the suspension of the union’s activities by some governors in the zone does not invalidate the rights of members from the zone to unionise and participate in the activities of the union.
Justice Oyewumi found that Baruwa was validly elected.
“The court also finds that contrary to the position of the defendants in their counter affidavit, the 1st claimant [Baruwa] was validly nominated and elected for the position of President of the Union at the Quadrennial National Delegates Conference,” the judge wrote in Paragraph 58.
“I equally find that contrary to the position of the defendants by Exhibit R14 at page 903 of the Record that there was a National Credential Committee constituted for the purpose of the screening of candidates for election into the National Administrative Council and shall also conduct the election, including the swearing in of the new NAC members. The defendants have not placed any document before this court to state contrary to the exhibits attached by the claimants in proof of the fact that before the constitution of the Caretaker Committee there had been Zonal and National Conferences which produced elected new officers.”
Aliyu Isa Ore, the third defendant, claimed that he never attended the conferences that produced Baruwa. Per the court’s findings, not only did he attend those conferences, he was nominated as a deputy president candidate from Kwara State and he appointed one Garba Musa as his polling agent.
On the appointment of 4th defendant Agbeyangi as acting general secretary on August 14 to legitimise the Special Delegates Conference earlier talked about, the court found that 13th claimant Asogwa had not vacated his position at that material time, making Agbeyangi’s appointment invalid. Asogwa only retired and lawfully relinquished his position from the union on October 28, 2023, having turned 65 years of age.
“I have perused the said Exhibits and I find therein, especially in Exhibit R4 that the 13th Claimant was born on 28th October 1958 which means that he would be 65 years of age which is the mandatory retirement age in the Union’s Conditions of service on 28th October 2023 contrary to the assertion of the defendants which was not backed by any credible evidence,” the judge stated in Paragraph 62.
“Again, the defendants who would want this court to believe that the 4th defendant [Kayode Agbeyangi] as at the relevant day (that is 14th August 2023) was the Acting General Secretary failed to place before this court any instrument appointing him as such especially since the claimants are alleging that the Acting Secretary is one Alhaji Suleman Musa who is the 4th defendant’s superior and who only just became such upon the retirement of 13th claimant on 28th October, 2023.”
“In my humble view it is only when the 4th defendant, Kayode Agbeyangi, has been shown to validly occupy the office of the Acting General Secretary that it can be said that he had the power to convene the Special Delegates Conference in line with Article 8 (2) of the Union’s Constitution. The States Council Resolution cannot give validity to the exercise of the power where such assumed power did not exist at that time it was purported to have been exercised.”
According to Justice Oyewumi, the only evidence placed before him to legitimise Agbeyangi’s appointment was a supposed resolution that emanated from an illegally convened Special Delegates Conference.
Before the caretaker committee could arise at all, the National Executive Council must have been dissolved first by a vote of no confidence by the majority of State Councils. By the court’s findings, nothing of such existed to justify the removal of the Baruwa-led council.
In a situation where a caretaker committee is validly constituted, it is only permitted by the constitution to convene a Special Delegates Conference to elect a new leadership within six months. Contrary to this, the committee in question went ahead to convene two conferences through which new officers were elected. Even at that, the election was held on October 25, 2023, contrary to the constitutional requirement that such an election must be held every four years and in the month of August.
A copy of the Certificate of Judgment issued by the National Industrial Court.
“An illegal act has no any other name; it is illegal. The defendants were clever by half. Since the Special Delegates Conference, which is the foundation, has been knocked off, then the constitution of the National Caretaker Committee cannot stand and since the Caretaker Committee equally exceeded its powers by convening the Zonal Delegates Conference and National Delegates Conference which led to the subsequent purported election and emergence of some persons as new officers vide Exhibit NURTW 5, which are the superstructures, must equally collapse like a pack of cards, because they lack foundation or structure to stand on and thus their purported election is a nullity,” the judge said, invalidating the caretaker committee and the election it conducted.
Assuming there were crises, said the judge, a better alternative was to ask the National Industrial Court under Sections 18 or 19 of the NICA 2006 to act in accordance with the powers conferred on it.
Instead of following the rule of law, the defendants chose to take laws into their hands and tow an illegal path. Akinsanya, alias MC Oluomo, who currently occupies the office of the union president, was one of the beneficiaries of that unlawful election.
NIC’s JUDGMENT AFFIRMED BY APPEAL COURT
In April 2024, the defendants appealed the industrial court’s judgment at the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja.
In a 40-page judgment delivered over six months after filing the appeal, the Court of Appeal unanimously agreed with and upheld the National Industrial Court’s findings.
The lower court found that all the contentious issues raised by both parties centered on the provisions of the union’s constitution. Based on this, the court decided the case by interpreting the applicable sections of the constitution.
At the Court of Appeal, Yasin and his co-appellants argued before a three-man panel interpreting the constitution without calling for oral testimony amounted to denial of fair hearing.
“On the denial of fair hearing by the grant of the reliefs, I have earlier found that the Appellants were not denied fair hearing by the Trial Court, the Appellants have clearly not shown, how the grant of the reliefs by the Trial Court denies them their right to fair hearing. Again, I resolve this issue in favour of the Respondents [Baruwa-led group],” Justice Asmau Ojuolape Akanbi, delivering the lead judgement on November 8, 2024, ruled.
The court remarkably resolved all the issues raised against the appellants [who were the defendants before the lower court], adding that they failed to show how the granting of reliefs in favour of the Baruwa-led council by the lower court denied them fair hearing.
“On the whole, all the issues are resolved against the appellants and in favour of the respondents. The appeal is devoid of merit and the same is hereby dismissed. I affirm the Judgment of the Trial Court delivered on the 11th day of March, 2024 in respect of Suit No: NICN/ABJ/263/2023,” Akanbi ruled.
Matters of this nature mostly terminate at the Court of Appeal. But it got worse. Despite the court ruling that there was no vacancy in the presidency of the union, Akinsanya-led Tajudeen Badru Agbede, acting as vice president, and Akeem Adeosun as a national trustee, and others assumed leadership of the union just three days after the appellate judgement was delivered.
Editor Note: This is the first of a two-part series on the leadership tussle facing the NURTW. The second, revealing how powerful people in the Bola Tinubu administration and federal security establishments have been frustrating the enforcement of the judgements, will be released on Sunday.
https://fij.ng/article/appeal-court-removed-illegal-nurtw-president-mc-oluomo-but-he-wont-quit-office/
