The background facts leading to this appeal are summarized herein. The Appellant as plaintiff at the Federal High Court Abuja took out a writ of summons against the Respondent, as Defendant, claiming for the following declaration and orders by the said trial Federal High Court in his Amended Statement of Claim.

The Respondent entered a conditional Appearance and filed a Statement of Defence and Notice of Preliminary Objection on the ground that the action is statute-barred and therefore the Court lacked jurisdiction to hear it. On 26/3/2002, the trial court in its considered ruling ordered a full trial as the court was unable to see the date of retirement complained of in. the Statement of Claim. The court held:

"I have gone through the entire paragraphs of the Statement of Claim of the Plaintiff including the above mentioned reliefs of the plaintiff; there is no where the date of retirement complained of here is mentioned. It is only the defendant that brought out in the statement of Defence that the retirement was with effect from 9/12/99. In the light of the foregoing therefore, it is my view that since the date of retirement which is material and vital to the determination of time raised in this preliminary objection is not pleaded by the plaintiff there is no legitimate way of determining the issue without proceeding to full trial. I therefore defer deciding that issue until evidence is fully led in this matter."

Thereafter the matter proceeded to trial and witnesses testified for the parties. The Appellant testified in person; he gave evidence that he was compulsorily retired and was served the letter of retirement dated 9th December 1999. The letter was admitted in evidence and marked "Exhibit 7". He testified that upon receipt of Exhibit ‘7' he wrote an appeal to the Senior Management Committee and the Committee relied on its letter of 4th January 2001. This letter was admitted in evidence and marked Exhibit '8'. On 23/6/2003, the trial Court delivered its Judgment dismissing the Appellant's Claims and held that the Appellant came to court over one year after the cause of action arose, and therefore the action was statute-barred.

Dissatisfied with the decision of the trial court, the Appellant appealed to the lower court, which in its considered judgment on 19/5/2005 dismissed the appeal and affirmed the judgment of the learned trial judge.

Aggrieved, the appellant has decided to further appeal against the decision of the court below to this Court.