SAN FRANCISCO, January 05, (THEWILL) – Judiciary employees under the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) have closed all the courts in the nation, including the Supreme Court over the federal government’s refusal to implement the judgment of a Federal High Court which stopped the Executive arm of government from holding on to funds meant for the judiciary.
JUSUN said its workers will continue the strike nationwide until the executive arm complies with the ruling.
President of JUSUN, Mr. Mustapha Adamu has blamed the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) for the failure of the Federal Government to implement the judgment of the Federal High Court.
Adamu, who however commended the Labour and Productivity Ministry for its effort in resolving the face-off between his union and the Federal Government, noted that Accountants-Generals in the various states had also frustrated the implementation of the judgment.
In what it described as a New Year gift to the Federal Government, JUSUN had called its members nationwide to shut down all courts in the country to protest the failure of the Executive to comply with a judgment of a Federal High Court, Abuja which ordered the Executive to hands off funds meant for the Judiciary.
The court had restrained the Federal Government and the 36 states of the federation from holding on to funds budgeted for the judiciary.
According to Adamu, “Remember that this judgment was delivered in January 2014. Since then, government has engaged us in discussion for about 20 times. We entered MoU seven times and the office of the Accountant General refused to obey the court judgment.
“There is an order directing him to deduct that money and pay to the National Judicial Council and he had failed to do this.
“Also, all the states governors through their Accountants-General and Commissioners for Finance, who are all members of FACC have equally contributed to bring us to where we are today.
“We have accommodated them, tolerated them, but since this is what they preferred, we have decided to give it to them as a New Year gift.”
He however sympathized with those affected by the strike, especially litigants, saying JUSUN members had no choice but to down tools to compel implementation of a subsisting court order and the agreement reached with them.
Meanwhile, all the courts in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja have been shut down because of the strike as the Federal High Court located at the Central Business District was placed under lock and key with judges, lawyers and workers turned back. The situation was not also different at the Abuja High Court in the Maitama District just as the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal located at the Three Arms Zone were also shut.
