Minister reinstates whistleblower

The African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) has commended Minister of State for Environment, Dr Ishaq Salako, for ordering the reinstatement of a whistleblower, Abraham Taiwo Joseph.

Joseph, a Senior Accountant at the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN), was dismissed from service in September 2021 for highlighting abuse of office and other illegal practices at the institute.

To get his job back, the civil servant had challenged his dismissal at the National Industrial Court.

The court had begun hearing the case when the minister intervened and urged the whistleblower to withdraw the suit for a fair in-house resolution.

His compliance led to the constitution of an investigative committee whose report cleared the whistleblower of any wrongdoing and compelled the Minister of State to order his reinstatement.

Coordinator of AFRICMIL, Dr Chido Onumah,  who intimated The Guardian of the development yesterday in Abuja, referenced a letter signed by one Umasabor Omoh, on behalf of the Minister of State, directing the Director-General/CEO of FRIN to “calculate and pay all entitlements that are due to him with effect from September 2021 to date in the interest of the Public Service.”

According to Onumah, “the minister made the right judgment by directing that the whistleblower be returned to his job. We commend him for this decision, which we believe is in the best interest of promoting transparency and accountability in our public institutions.”

The coordinator claimed that the whistleblower was “called back to work after three years of joblessness and persecution, including police harassment, threat to life and a frivolous lawsuit by the immediate past head of the institute, Prof Adepoju Olusola.”

While expressing satisfaction with the decision, Onumah lamented Joseph’s continued victimisation through what he described as “punitive posting of the whistleblower with his transfer out of the FRIN headquarters in Ibadan to a much farther branch of the institute in Idi-Ayunre, a border town to Ogun State.”