A Nigerian journalist Dr Ode Okore, has been awarded a total of $99,599 and a separate N3m by the National Industrial Court, Lagos Division, in a 33-year-old case against The Guardian newspaper. Dr Ode Okore who was the newspaper’s foreign correspondent at one time and also in charge of The Guardian North American Bureau in New York, had in August 1986 sued the newspaper before the Lagos State High Court for wrongful termination of his employment.
However the case was struck out
in its 26th year by the state high court, over lack of jurisdiction
following the amendment to the 1999 Constitution (Third Alteration Act
2010), which took effect on March 4, 2011.Okore however filed a fresh
one before the National Industrial Court, Lagos Division in August 2013,
which was struck out in March 2017, after which, the unrelenting
journalist filed a third one in November 2017. The Nigerian journalist
in a new twist of event, was then awarded $99,599 and N3m in the
33-year-old case which Justice Nelson Ogbuanya presided in.
Punch
reported that the Judge who dismissed the preliminary objection of the
newspaper that the case was statute-barred, misconceived, frivolous,
vexatious and constituted an abuse of court processes, held that it was
not Okore’s fault that the state high court struck out his case, which
had lasted 26 years in court, before the constitution was amended to
strip the high court of jurisdiction.
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