Judiciary financial autonomy: Governors bow to pressure, fix May for implementation
By Ayo Fadimu
The Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) has said it will ensure the implementation of financial autonomy for state legislative and judiciary institutions by May 2021.
The assurance was given by the chairman of the NGF, Dr Kayode Fayemi after a meeting with the Chief of Staff to the President, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari at the Statehouse.
Fayemi insisted that the Governors forum has never been opposed to the issue of financial autonomy and that the governors, the speakers, and judges are on the same page.
He further disclosed that upon emerging from a meeting with the Solicitor-General of the Federation, the representatives of the judiciary, the representatives of the Conference of Speakers, and House of Representatives today, an agreement has been reached, thus reiterating that Nigerians can expect implementation of the agreement no later than May.
Fayemi spoke just as the Chairman Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Sen. Michael Bamidele insited that the independence of the judiciary was non negotiable.
Bamidele was reacting to the ongoing strike by the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN).
The Governor’s decision also came on the day members of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) staged a peaceful march at the National Assembly in solidarity with judiciary workers who are protesting in favour of financial autonomy in the country.
The lawyers who had earlier converged at the Court of Appeal gate before proceeding to the Parliament’s complex in their numbers were stopped from entering the Assembly by security operatives.
It would be recalled that JUSUN began a nationwide indefinite strike on Monday, April 6 over the non-implementation of judicial financial autonomy as enshrined in the Constitution.
President Muhammadu Buhari had signed an Executive Order granting financial autonomy to the judiciary and State House of Assembly in May 2020, after several agitations.
However, the gazetting of the order was suspended after Buhari met with governors, who later expressed concern over its constitutionality.
Reacting to the development, Bamidele who said that the independence of the judiciary was non negotiable added that no democracy could survive without Rule of Law and independence of the judiciary.
“For me as a Nigerian, it is laughable that we still need at this point, to be grappling with the need to grand judiciary independence at whatever level be it at the federal, state and local government level.
“Our laws are very clear on this,” he said.
He said that the National Assembly had guaranteed the independence of the judiciary at the federal level calling on state houses of assembly to do same.
“For the National Assembly, we have done the needful by making necessary laws that can guarantee independence of the judiciary at the federal level. So for us, it is not an issue because we have done the needful.
“What is left is for our state houses of assembly to also do what they are supposed to do.
“And that is why as a principle, as a policy, members of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters have tried not to call on those who are protesting to stop such protest.
“We do not want protest but definitely we will rather talk more to our state governors, to our state houses of assembly and to the stakeholders that are supposed to do the needful to please do the needful in overriding public interest.
“We cannot continue to call on the judiciary to give peace a chance when we know the conditions under which they work cannot guarantee a passionate and enhanced delivery of justice.
“We must not be left behind by the rest of the civilised world. Nobody stands to lose anything by granting judiciary independence at the state level. It has been done at the national level.”
