Rivers workers win leave to challenge refusal to enforce salary judgment

The Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt has granted about 100 disengaged Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency workers leave to challenge a decision concerning payment of their outstanding salaries. The workers say their salaries stopped in 2017 after they were disengaged by the Rivers State Government. In October 2021, the National Industrial Court declared that their employment subsisted and that the agency and the state government were co-employers until their employment status was determined.

The lower court also directed the state government, then led by Governor Nyesom Wike, to pay the workers’ salaries and emoluments. The workers say the directive has not been obeyed. They later filed enforcement proceedings seeking an order for immediate payment.

The National Industrial Court refused to grant the order, citing a subsisting appeal. Counsel for the workers, Isa Saidu, told the Court of Appeal on Monday that an application seeking leave to appeal had been filed on July 17, 2025. A deputy director in the Rivers State Ministry of Justice, H.N.

Amadi, represented the agency and state government and did not oppose the application. Justice Elfrieda Williams-Dawodu granted the workers permission to appeal. Saidu said the workers were dissatisfied that enforcement had been refused on the basis of a pending appeal, arguing that no appeal had been filed against the original judgment.

He said a separate suit calculated the amount owed at more than N3bn and that the sum continued to increase because the employment relationship had not been determined. Saidu also alleged that one worker had died by suicide because of the hardship. The material does not state a date for the appeal hearing.