Alleged Wrongful dismissal: Ex-staff accuses TotalEnergies of frustrating court cases

A disengaged staff member of TOTAL Energies, Mrs Oghenero Ozobeme, has accused the company of frustrating pending cases she filed to seek redress over her alleged wrongful dismissal.

This is also as she decried the alleged delay in the approval of processes for the filing of her appeal against a judgement of the National Industrial Court sitting in Lagos.

Mrs Ozobeme’s employment was allegedly wrongly terminated in 2018, leading to a suit she filed against Total Energies.

The claimant, who said she had brain surgery, had disclosed that the trip and medical treatment were funded by her husband.

In an SOS she sent then to the media, Ozobeme recalled that on April 30, 2020, amid the COVID-19 lockdown, TOTAL Energies allegedly communicated that her services were no longer required.

She said the sack letter was dispatched after the management of the oil giant got a subpoena to appear and testify in court.

“The termination letter was delivered to me at home on the 29th of April 2020 during the COVID-19 restrictions.

“It came from the Managing Director. In fact, the line manager had assigned tasks to me on the same day as I worked from home,” she claimed.

The dismissed staff went to court, culminating in litigation that ended at the National Industrial Court, in suit No: NICN/LA/186/2018, wherein she alleged corporate misconduct and medical negligence.

Ozobeme claimed TotalEnergies and its lawyers had allegedly circumvented justice through the presentation of falsified facts.

However, Ozobeme, who is dissatisfied with the decision of the National Industrial Court, is now also claiming that her appeal against the judgement of the court is being frustrated.

In a recent statement she sent to the press, she not only rejected the judgement of the Industrial Court but also accused the court of denying her an easy opportunity to appeal the judgement.

According to Ozobeme, she filed an application for leave of the appeal court (CA/LAG/PRE/ROA/CV/407M1/24) to appeal the judgement “but has been continuously denied a court date for over 6 (six) months and still counting.”

On her grounds for faulting the verdict, she said the judgement delivered by Honourable Justice Professor Elizabeth Oji was on a faulty foundation, leading to a devastating miscarriage of justice.

She described as untrue the conclusion of the court that “the Voluntary Severance Package, VSP, is a retirement and resignation exit package initiated at the option of the employee.

“That the terms of voluntary retirement and resignation are provided for in the Collective Agreement and there is no mention of a Voluntary Severance Package or any additional benefit founded on employee application.

“That the 2020 VSP is not known to the employment contract or labour statute and was never placed before the Court.

“That the claimant admitted under cross-examination that she knew of the VSP but chose not to apply.

“That for the claimant to be entitled to early retirement benefits, she was required to seek approval from her employer.”

The aggrieved staff declared that she had filed an application to the National Industrial Court seeking a mandatory injunction “restoring parties back to status quo ante, having been unlawfully terminated without reason, while the case was pending before Honourable Justice Paul Bassi JCA.”

She added that she had filed a petition to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee on the matter, seeking a probe of the legal process.

The claimant further stated that she remains unrelenting “and passionately appeals for support from everyone that shares the aspiration of human dignity, where innocent young women are not persecuted because they are blessed with reproductive capacity or a distinctive gender.”

She believed that the fight was not just for her alone but for every victim of medical negligence fighting for justice and accountability against powerful special interests.

However, when the press contacted TotalEnergies spokesperson, Noble Ikpami for comment on Friday and Saturday morning, he had yet to respond as of the time of filing this report.