Bayelsa Govt appeals court ruling in favour of Nengi Ilagha
By Editor
THE Bayelsa State Government has formally appealed the ruling of the Industrial Court of Nigeria, given by Justice Bashir Alkali on November 22, 2023, in favour of a civil servant and veteran journalist, Nengi Josef Ilagha.
Dated November 14, 2024, the appeal was entered in the records of the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt on May 19, 2025. The government is contesting the judgment of the Industrial Court in entirety.
After five years of litigation, Justice Bashir Alkali had ruled that the Bayelsa State Government should pay the hard-working civil servant his rightful emoluments across the fifteen-year span of his denial, and retire him from the Bayelsa State Civil Service with full benefits.
Nengi Josef Ilagha worked as Editor of the Tide on Sunday at the Rivers State Newspaper Corporation, Port Harcourt, for four years under military and civilian times alike, before proceeding on secondment to serve as Speech Writer to the Governor, following the creation of Bayelsa State.
For seven consecutive years, from 2000 to 2007, he served the first two civilian governments of Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan with equal zeal, during which he was promoted to occupy the office of Special Adviser on Research and Documentation.
A pioneer editorial staff of the Bayelsa State Newspaper Corporation, publishers of New Waves, he was later appointed as General Manager of the Corporation, before a peremptory suspension order which has proven to be wrongful and unfair in the eyes of the law.
Nengi Josef Ilagha, Mingi-Yai of Nembe Kingdom, is an award-winning poet, author of several books, including Mantids, Royal Mail, The Militant Writes Back, Sermons from The Oxbow Lake, Happy Hour With My Governor, and Epistles to the President, amongst others. He is also a public relations consultant of considerable repute.
Popularly known as Pope Pen the First, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, at the Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village, Abuja, in November 2023.
He retired from the Bayelsa State Civil Service when he attained the statutory age of 60 in December 2023. He is the publisher of Coastline News Network, a monthly magazine with a trained focus on the Niger Delta.
