Air Peace Drags Nigerian Workers Unions, NLC, TUC To Court

Nigeria-based airline, Air Peace, has slammed the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) with a N1.7 billion lawsuit at the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos State over the alleged disruption of its operations by the unions and its officers.

The suit was filed before the court pursuant to Order 6(6)(b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Order 28 Rules 1 & 2 of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2019, and the inherent jurisdiction of the court.

The Airline joined the President of NLC, Joe Ajaero; the President of TUC, Festus Osifoh; the Secretary General of NLC, Comrade Emmanuel Ugboaja and the General Secretary of TUC Comrade Nuhu Toro.

Air Peace in the suit asked the court for “a declaration that given the very sensitive nature of aviation ordinarily, and particularly in the current climate of pervasive fear of insecurity over long-distance travels within Nigeria by other modes of transportation, the defendants’ calculated precipitation of grounding all the plaintiff’s flights throughout Nigeria for the singular reason that it is responsible for the majority of air-passenger and goods flights in the country in order to cause substantial nationwide paralysis, constitutes condemnable sabotage of the national economy and security.”

The airline also asked the court for “an order of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants by themselves, their agents/servants/privies or otherwise, howsoever, from repeating/continuing the acts of intimidation and coercion against it.”

In the documents tendered before the court, Air Peace, through its lawyer, Chijioke Okoli (SAN), stated that on May 3, 2023, its employees on duty were confronted by a noisy mob which invaded their offices, check-in counters and work areas at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos and the Murtala Mohammed Airport Terminal 1 (MM1) premises, essentially disrupting their work; disorganising and upturning tables, unplugging and pushing away desktops and personal computers used for employment by the employees, some of whom sustained injuries in the melee.

Air Peace further claimed that from the songs they sang and the instructions that the apparent leaders loudly issued during the disruption, it immediately became clear that the mob causing the disruptive scene were members of the NLC and TUC, some of whom got into violent altercations, injuring some of its customers and staff who voiced their frustrations at the disruption and frustration of their travel plans by the defendants’ antics.

The Airline also stated that the defendant’s actions had inevitable ripple effects on their operations in other airports in the country, including the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, and Sam Mbakwe Airport, Owerri, all of which the plaintiff’s scheduled flights could not take off from or land at.

The airline says it later learnt that the defendants, had some grouse against the Governor of Imo State, Chief Hope Uzodimma, and to “punish him”, decided upon a total shutdown of Imo State beginning from Wednesday, May 3, 2023, as was stated among other things in their joint communiqué of May 1, 2023.

The airline said “That Lagos is the operational hub and nerve centre of the airline operations, and a direct consequence of the defendants’ malicious and unlawful invasion of its work areas/offices and forcible prevention of its functions, as detailed above, was the cancellation of its flights billed for different destinations,” it said.

“Several Air Peace staff suffered physical molestation and incurred bruises which led to their psychological trauma and hospital visitations for treatments, with some having to be excused for some days’ absence from work to recover.”

Air Peace in addition to the financial losses said that it has also suffered a grave injury to its business reputation, not only in the eyes of its flying customers but also in those of the general public and its investors.