Court Orders Reinstatement Of Dismissed NIA DG, Dauda

The National Industrial Court of Nigeria, Abuja Division, has faulted the dismissal of a former Acting Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ambassador Mohammed Dauda, and hereby ordered his immediate reinstatement.

Dauda was dismissed on March 6, 2018.

However, his counsel, Kanu Agabi, SAN, filed an application challenging the legality of the agency’s decision.

He had told the court in May 2018 that the “dismissal falls short of the provisions of Article 8 (1) and 2) of the National Securities Agency Act (Cap 278 LINI 1956 and null and void.”

At the court’s sitting on Thursday, presiding judge, Justice Olufunke Anuwe, said that the agency’s dismissal of Dauda was unlawful, adding it was a nullity.

The judge’s order partly read:

“AN ORDER reinstating him as Director and the Acting Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, AN ORDER for the payment of his salaries and entitlements from the period of his unlawful dismissal to the point of his reinstatement, On October 15, 2020, the Learned Trial Judge in a well-considered Judgment, found in favour of the Claimant, answered the questions in the affirmative and granted the reliefs sought.

“With specific reference to relief 5 above, the trial Court granted same mutatis mutandis, that is, his Lordship reinstated the Claimant as a Director of the National Intelligence.”