By NewsBits
A regulation of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), forbidding unmarried female officers from getting pregnant, has been vacated by the National Industrial Court. Pursuant to Regulation 127 of the Nigeria Police Force Regulation, a woman officer who gets pregnant outside wedlock will be dismissed.
Omolola Olajide, an unmarried woman police corporal attached to Iye-Ekiti station, was sacked in 2021 for getting pregnant. Babatunde Mobayo, the state commissioner of police, had justified Olajide’s sack, saying the officer contravened section 127 of the police regulations.
Sequel to the sack, Olawale Fapohunda, Ekiti state attorney-general and commissioner for justice, had instituted a lawsuit before a federal high court in Ekiti seeking an order of the court nullifying section 127 of the Police Act. But the court had dismissed the suit on the grounds that it was an abuse of court process since a similar suit filed by Olajide was pending before the National Industrial Court.
Delivering judgment in the suit marked NICN/AK/14/2021, Dashe Damulak, presiding judge in the court’s Akure division, held that the particular section of the police regulation was “discriminatory, illegal, null and void”.
The court held that the regulation “violates section 42 of the (Nigerian) Constitution and Article 2 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights Ratification and Enforcement Act which abolished discrimination on basis of gender”.
Said the judge: “The court… finds and holds that the provision of section 127 of the Police Act and Regulation 127 thereof, which applies to unmarried women police officers getting pregnant while in service but does not apply to unmarried male police officers impregnating females while they are in service, is discriminatory against unmarried women police officers by section 1(3) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended.
“If any law is inconsistent with the provision of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of its inconsistency be void”.
Although the court nullified the “discriminatory” regulation, the judge said Olajide could not be reinstated into the police force, holding further that the claimant’s dismissal could not be reversed as she was on probation at the time of her sack from the force.
Held the judge: “For the avoidance of doubt, the case of the claimant succeeds in part only in terms of prayer B”. However, the judge awarded aggravated damages of N5 million for the violation of Olajide’s fundamental right to freedom from discrimination.
