It is now over six weeks since the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria, JUSUN, embarked on a nationwide strike to push for the independence and financial autonomy of the judiciary.
As the government continues to foot drag on the implementation of executive order no.10 of the year 2020, signed by President Muhammadu Buhari, Plus TV Africa examines reasons why the independence of the judiciary must be granted.
President Buhari had in 2020, signed into law an executive order granting financial autonomy to the legislature and the judiciary across the 36 states of the federation. Executive order no. 10 of 2020, made it mandatory for all states to include the allocations of both the legislature and the judiciary in the first-line charge of their budgets.
The JUSUN, therefore, embarked on the current nationwide strike on April 6, 2021, on the grounds that so many states have refused to comply with the executive order.
The strike has no doubt crippled activities in courts at both the state and federal levels, with so many cases unheard due to the closure of courts.
As a condition to end the ongoing strike, the union has insisted that all the funds due to state judiciaries for the month of October 2020 till may 2021 be deducted directly from the federation account and paid to the heads of courts through the national judicial council as prescribed by the constitution.
Besides the delay in justice delivery, the strike has also taken its toll on foreign investments which even before now was coming in trickles due to the Covid-19 pandemic.