Court okays sack of bank staff over N306 million fraud

The National Industrial Court, Abuja on Monday affirmed the dismissal of one Rabi Ibrahim from Unity Bank Plc, following her involvement in a N306.2 million fraud.

Ms Ibrahim was dismissed on grounds of negligence when it was discovered that she used her password to approve unauthorised transactions from accounts belonging to three different organisations without the consent of the account holders.

Rakiya Haastrup, the judge, said the claimant challenged her summary dismissal as unlawful on the grounds that she was not accorded fair hearing.

Mrs Haastrup said the claimant also averred that she was arrested, detained for five days, prosecuted for criminal conspiracy, forgery, theft, and negligent conduct.

The judge said the evidence before the court, however, proved that the terms and conditions of employment of the claimant as contained in the Employee Handbook, governed her appointment.

She added that the claimant admitted that she logged into her colleague’s laptop, using her password to carry out transaction alert for customers.

The judge also said that evidence before the court was contrary to the claimant’s assertion that she was not accorded fair hearing before her dismissal.

She said there were written queries which the claimant replied to, and also reports from audit and staff disciplinary committee which indicted and recommended her dismissal.

“It is clear that the claimant was given opportunity to defend herself on the allegations against her, contrary to her assertion that she was not accorded fair hearing.

“The defendant in my humble view acted in accordance with the conditions of service which stipulates summary dismissal for offence like gross negligence which the claimant was indicted for,” the judge said.

She said there was no evidence before the court brought by the claimant sufficient to support her claim of unlawful dismissal.

The judge said that all the reliefs sought by the claimant in the suit failed in its entirety and accordingly dismissed the suit.

The claimant’s counsel, Sani Tijani, had urged the court to declare his client’s dismissal as unlawful, pay her salaries and allowances from the time of her dismissal in 2015 until judgment.

Mr Tijani also sought payment of general damages to the tune of N100 million for his client. (NAN)