After three weeks of nationwide strike action, Judicial workers, have agreed to call of the strike only if the federal and state governments assure them, through a written undertaking, that they will implement the judgment of the Federal High Court, Abuja on the funding of the judiciary.
The demand was made on Thursday by Mr. Marwan Adamu, president of the Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) while he was speaking with newsmen.
Adamu put some blames of the face off on the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla, for failing to promptly begin the implementation of the court judgement.
“More importantly, the Accountant-General of the Federation caused about 25 percent of the problem. This is because the provisions of section 162(9) of the Constitution empower him to deduct the money meant for the judiciary from the source and pay to the NJC for onward disbursement to heads of courts,” Adamu said.
“In as much as he did not challenge the judgment he is not morally justified to ignore the order. If he deducts the money from the state governments’ funds from the source and any governor complains, it is for the state governors to accept it or go to court to challenge the judgment.”
The court, presided over by Justice Adeniyi Ademola, had in January ordered the Accountant-General of the Federation to deduct the funds meant for the states’ judiciary directly from the Consolidated Revenue Fund and pay it to the National Judicial Council for onward disbursement to various heads of court as provided for in the constitution.
The court had also declared that the piece-meal approach of funding of the state judiciary by various state governors was unconstitutional.
JUSUN, which took the matter to court, had proceeded on the strike when the state governments failed to obey the court order.
“Our demand is simple. JUSUN will suspend the strike if we get a cogent, concrete and presentable commitment from the government,” Adamu said.
He said the union is not asking the government for instant payment of the money, rather, the union wants the government to first acknowledge that there is a court judgement it is ignoring.
“If for example, both the representatives of the federal and state governments say that they agree there is a court judgment and that they have not complied with it but that they need one week, two weeks, or even one month, to comply, that is a commitment,” he explained.
“The commitment should be in written form. It can no longer be in verbal form because we have had a number of verbal assurances which have failed. We were even given written memorandum which failed.”
Adamu pointed out that one of the failed verbal assurances given by government was the promise to set up a technical committee which would consider the budgets of various states in view of plan to implement the judgment.
“But no state government has sent any representatives to the meetings held at the instance of the Minster of Labour, Mr. Emeka Wogu, since February when discussions on the issue started,” he said.
He said the strike is as a result of government’s refusal to honour the 21 days ultimatum that JUSUN had twice issued since February and also to nudge the government to show enough willingness to start implementing the court order.
