Court fines CBN as bank counters order to pay ex-Taraba gov, 3 others pension arrears

The National Industrial Court has fined the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) N100,000 after seeking to introduce a new stay of execution application in the case against the former Taraba governor, Jolly Nyame, and three others.

CBN’s counsel, Johannah Titus, had requested to file two applications challenging the decision of the court to pay Nyame, and judgement creditors; Uba Ahmadu, Abubakar Armayau and Bilkisu Danboyi N151.1 million for unpaid pension for the period of May 2013 to Oct. 2015.

The decision was challenged on May 27, 2022 through an application Titus told the court that CBN intended to replace with two new applications, but her request was countered by Edward Erhinure, counsel to the judgment creditors.

Erhinure said he had filed a counter to the previous applications, and response to the new applications to be introduced by CBN will cost money. He demanded N1 million as cost to file a counter-affidavit.

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However, Confidence Samuel, Counsel to Taraba state government didn’t object to the new applications, after which the court ordered CBN to pay the sum of N100,000 to the judgement creditors, and the stay of execution application case was adjourned to October.

The total pension arrears of the affected is N196 million, but N45 million had already been paid before Justice Sanusi Kado ordered the payment of the balance, N151.1 million on July 12, 2019.

Kado said the payment should be made in 10 installments, and should be paid monthly from July 2019 to November 2021. However, during this period, only N16.3 million had been paid since the first instalment.