Mohammed Dauda, a former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), who was fired, has been reinstated by the Court of Appeal on Thursday by the Abuja Division.
The evidence used to dismiss Dauda, according to Justice Peter Ige, was baseless and frivolous when he delivered the ruling.
Additionally, the judge decided all of the contentious issues in favour of Dauda, a respondent in the lawsuit, and against the National Intelligence Agency.
He then issued an order for the payment of his wages and benefits since the day he was fired from his position.
The appellate court also issued an order directing the payment of N1,000,000 to Dauda.
Justice Ige held further: “Dauda should be allowed to retire in service in accordance with the stipulated laws. “
“There is no evidence before the court that shows that the respondent has constituted any risk or breached any law.
“The appellant’s appeal is hereby dismissed for lacking in merit and the Industrial Court judgement is hereby affirmed.“
Dauda, it will be recalled, acted as the head of the security agency from November 2017 to January 2018, when he was replaced by an aide to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Dauda had spent just a few months on the job before he was removed.
He claimed that it was illegal for there to be no Special Management Staff of the Disciplinary Committee (SMSDC) established to look into the allegations against him and that he was not given a fair hearing following that.
He claimed that it was unlawful for no Special Management Staff of the Disciplinary Committee (SMSDC) to be established to look into the allegations against him, and that the subsequent hearing was unfair.
In a previous ruling by Justice Olufunke Anuwe, the court had mandated Dauda’s reinstatement as the director of the National Intelligence Agency and the payment of his wages and benefits from March 2018 to the present after concluding that his dismissal had violated the NIA Act.
The judgement held that, in accordance with the agency’s rule, the management staff disciplinary committee, and “not the special management staff disciplinary committee,” is the proper committee to investigate disciplinary cases against management staff.
