Former Minister of State for Education, Kenneth Gbagi has condemned the court judgement against him in a case of staff abuse.
The politician is the Social Democratic Party (SDP) 2023 governorship candidate in Delta State.
Gbagi was accused of ordering four staff to be unclothed and photographed in September 2020 at his Signatious Hotel in Effurun.
On Monday, a Delta High Court in Warri ordered him to compensate one of the assaulted employees.
Justice Vera Agbodje ordered Gbagi to pay N1million for violating the rights of one Victor Ephraim.
In suit EHC/FHR/80/2020, Ephraim told the court that he and three female staff of the hotel were tortured.
He said they were stripped naked and paraded publicly for allegedly failing to remit money paid by a guest.
The victim added that Gbagi collected their ATM cards and transferred monies in their accounts to the hotel’s account.
Delivering judgment, Justice Agbodje held that the stories presented by Gbagi were false, concocted, and not believable.
In a statement, Gbagi claimed that the court judgment was orchestrated by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s government to discredit him.
“I urge my teeming supporters to ignore Okowa’s paid judgment. You can not demarket what God has marketed”, NAN quoted him saying.
“As a law-abiding citizen, the expenditure of Okowa’s government to demarket me is a fruitless venture, a waste of time and resources.
“We have entered an appeal to set aside the “paid junk judgment” for a competent Court and the National Judicial Council to do justice to the procedure.”