Activities at the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Finance were almost paralysed on Monday as officials from the National Industrial Court, Abuja division, stormed the building to enforce a court judgment.
The officials led by the Bailiff, NIC, Abuja division, Mr Donatus Okwor, entered the building to enforce the court judgment which was delivered on February 19 last year.
The court had ordered the ministry of Finance to pay compensation to some workers of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose appointment were said to be unjustly terminated.
The court officials, it was learnt arrived the building and were making plans to confiscate properties belonging to the ministry that would be commensurate with the compensation ordered by the court when securities operatives prevented them from doing so.
The development resulted into a commotion which made the security agencies to shut the gates to guests who had business transactions to carry out in the ministry.
Speaking on the development, Okwor said the ministry of finance had deliberately refused to obey the court judgment by paying the claims which runs into millions of Naira.
He said, “Actually there is a judgment delivered by the National Industrial Court of Nigeria against federal ministry of Finance and federal ministry of foreign affairs which specify that they should pay the claimant a specific amount of money whom they have dismissed from work.
“Since February 19, 2014 till now, they have refused to pay the judgement. So we are here to execute the court judgement.
“Once it comes to execution of judgment, there is no way we can go back, except if there is any motion pending, but as we speak now, there is no pending motion which will warrant the defendants not to pay the money.
“For now, they refused to pay the money and obey the judgement of the court.
(Punch)
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