A former employee of Cellulant Nigeria Limited has sued the company for an amount of approximately 529 million naira for “unjustified termination” of his employment contract. It was also copied in the Cellulant Corporation lawsuit (the second defendant).
The former employee, in the lawsuit document signed by his attorneys, Samuel Etuk Esq. And Nseobong Okon Esq., Claimed that the alleged termination of his contract “violates the clear terms of the Standard Operating Procedure which makes it mandatory that all terminations must be backed by valid reasons and evidence of the crimes committed and the termination must be approved by a Disciplinary Committee. “
Recall had previously reported that the company’s co-founder, Mr. Bolaji Akinboro, resigned while the employment contract of more than 35 employees was terminated.
When contacted about the matter, Cellulant had replied that the irregularities that he found on one of his platforms, Agrikore, was the reason behind the co-founder’s resignation and the firing of some staff.
However, in the answer, the company noted that its compliance review on the Agrikore platform revealed “14 employees had improperly received funds from Agrikore’s portfolios.” and that “there is no indication that client funds have been compromised.”
When asked why more than 35 employees were laid off when only 14 employees were alleged to be involved in the lack of professionalism on the Agrikore platform, the Cellulant media representative asked for a time to respond.
However, there was no response to that effect since then except for the answer; “Thank you for your email. I’ll get back to you on this.” The first email delivered was sent immediately. No follow-up email was responded to either.
According to the former employee, he is one of the affected employees who were not part of the 14 suspected of being involved in the alleged compromise found on the Agrikore platform.
Relating his side of the story, he said; “By letter dated September 7, 2020, Cellulant Nigeria Limited ordered me to proceed with the suspension pending the completion of the forensic audit on the alleged suspicious activities in the Food Processing Market Business Unit (Agrikore platform).
“The suspension letter said that when the investigation is complete, they will write to me to inform me of the outcome of the investigation and if they feel there are grounds for further disciplinary action, they will inform me in writing of those reasons.
“Before the conclusion of the forensic audit or the initiation of any disciplinary process, Cellulant issued a termination letter dated September 15, 2020, in which it intended to terminate the fixed-term employment contract by opting to pay two weeks of salary instead of notification in accordance with clause 15.2 of the same effective as of September 16, 2020.
However, it was learned that before the judicial process began, amicable reparation of the action was attempted and was refuted by Cellulant; which led him to seek redress in the court of law.
In a previous report published by, another affected employee had He said; “This is already a warning sign that there are problems. If there is fraud, the company is expected to isolate the problem, investigate, and share the guilty report. “
In their lawsuit, the former staff alleged “an order ordering the Defendants (Celluant Nigeria Limited and Cellulant Corporation) to pay the plaintiff general damages in the amount of N500,000,000 (five hundred million naira) for breach of employment contracts with dated October 30, 2013 and December 1, 2019.
“Undue termination of the Plaintiff’s employment contracts, victimization and unfair labor practices.
“The cost of this action on a full compensation basis (including, but not limited to, the claimant’s attorney’s fees) in the amount of N5,000,000.”
In light of the #Endsars campaign, which calls on the government to end all forms of police brutality and injustice, the plaintiff appealed that all forms of corporate injustice must be aggressively challenged and fought, as Nigerians they can no longer be treated with impunity.
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