The National Industrial Court, Abuja, on Thursday converted a summary dismissal of a member of staff of Femi Otedola’s Forte Oil Plc to termination and ordered the company to pay N6.280 million as gratuity.

The sum was reached by calculating the claimant’s basic monthly salary by the numbers of years he worked for Forte Oil.

The court also ordered that Forte Oil pay the claimant, Muhammed Chiroma, the sum of N400,530, being his one month salary in lieu of notice.

Justice Benedict Kanyip said Chiroma’s purported dismissal was wrongful as it did not follow the policies and procedures manual governing the conditions of service for staff of Forte Oil.

The judge said the manual stipulated termination of employment for staff found guilty of dereliction and negligence of duty and not summary dismissal.

Mr Chiroma was issued a query for dereliction and negligence of duty before he was summarily dismissed on January 19, 2010. In his statement of claims, he said he was employed by Forte Oil in its Gusau office in June 1994.

Forte Oil has until 30 days to comply with the judgement.