Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) has described as “unfortunate” the misleading of the public by Accountant General of the Federation that his office had released October allocation to the National Judicial Council (NJC), adding that the AGF “is benefiting from the said fund while workers are yet to get their pay.”
National President of JUSUN, Comrade Marwan Mustapha Adamu, who spoke in Abuja, said the AGF “cannot be claiming of releasing fund to NJC when his information is false and capable of putting his members in trauma.”
Marwan lamented that the union was not longer comfortable with the development and “as such can take unpleasant decision to ensure workers right is protected.”
He said a situation whereby the office of the Accountant General of the Federation would release the money to the NJC, at will, had brought untold hardship on the workers.
He said: “In view of the situation, the union is not comfortable with this development and our position is that, if this matter continues and still persists and or unabated by the Federal Accountant General or the Ministry of Finance immediately by offsetting the salaries and allowances of Benchers of Federal and State High Court, and the members of staff of Federal Courts, the union would have no other option than to put all necessary machinery in place for the union’s stand, which may be very unpleasant.
“We strongly maintain our position during a meeting on the implementation of subsisting judgment of the Federal High Court without apologies that no release of allocation was made to NJC by Accountant General of the Federation, even against the orders and judgment of the Federal High Court on the independence if Judiciary.”
It would be recalled that in a meeting called on the instance Secretary to Federal Government, Anyim Pius Anyim, Wednesday, November 5, 2014, a director of administration of NJC, Mr. Eugene Odukwu, that allocation of the Judiciary for the month of October, 2014 has been release.
This information which was corroborated by the AGF at the meeting was refuted in a letter by Secretary of NJC, Danladi Halilu, dated November 6, 2014, insisting that “JUSUN position on non-release of allocation on time to the Judiciary is correct; the wrong information given by the director of administration of the NJC is highly regretted.”