Seventy former employees of Premium Pension Ltd. (PPL) have filed a suit at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) in Abuja, accusing the pension administrator of unlawfully terminating their employment and withholding their gratuities and other entitlements. The claimants approached the court after receiving what they described as sudden and unjust disengagement letters issued in August 2025.
Speaking through their representatives, the former staff said they instituted the action because the company allegedly backdated their disengagement letters and ignored repeated demands for payment of their benefits, a situation they said had caused significant hardship. They further alleged that PPL acted “with malice and bad faith,” insisting that their dismissal was effected without reason or proper notice.
According to court documents, the 70 claimants—including Mr. Ibrahim Usman Raji, Mr. Emmanuel Folorunsho, Mr. Mustapha Saidu Sulaiman, and Mr. Muhammed Baba Ibrahim—are suing in a representative capacity on behalf of themselves and 60 others whose employment was “wrongfully terminated.”
Premium Pension Ltd. is listed as the sole defendant. The former workers are seeking eight declaratory reliefs and nine monetary claims. They want the court to declare that valid employment contracts existed between them and the company until their disengagements, which they described as abrupt, unlawful, and wrongful.
They are also asking the court to compel the firm to pay a lump sum equivalent to three months’ gross emoluments, as stated in their disengagement letters. In addition, they want the court to order PPL to pay their full exit and gratuity benefits, which they said had earlier been communicated to staff and approved by the company’s board.
The claimants are further seeking an order directing Premium Pension Ltd. to settle all their entitlements in full, “without any deduction of purported liabilities.”
In the suit, Mr. Raji and others told the court that although their disengagement letters were dated 29 July and stated to take effect from 1 August, they actually received the letters after resuming work in August 2025. They alleged that the backdating was done “deliberately to deny them earned benefits,” including the annual education subsidy normally paid in August.
The former staff also accused the company of refusing to pay their profit share, performance bonus, and productivity bonus, despite what they described as several reminders. They said PPL’s actions had caused them and their dependants “severe hardship, financial loss, and emotional distress.”
According to the claimants, Premium Pension Ltd. had previously paid gratuity and exit packages to other categories of staff but “chose not to pay them out of sheer greed and refusal to be responsible.”
They added that representatives of the disengaged employees made several attempts to resolve the issue by meeting former board chairmen, Alhaji Aliyu Abdurrahnan Dikko, Mr. Ibrahim Babayo, and Mr. Yunusa Yakubu, but “nothing came out of the efforts,” prompting them to seek judicial intervention.
