By Onyewuchi Ojinnaka
The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Tanko Mohammad on Tuesday convened a meeting with the leadership of Judiciary workers to find a possible solution to the lingering JUSUN strike which has crippled court activities across Nigeria for more than eight weeks.
Aside the CJN, some members of the National Judicial Council (NJC) are in the crucial meeting with the leadership ofJudiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) in Abuja.
The meeting was convened with the hope of finding an agreeable solution to the strike embarked upon since April 6.
The court workers are demanding financial autonomy for the judiciary arm of government as specified in the 1999 constitution.
The national treasurer of JUSUN, Jimoh Musa, told our correspondent that the meeting was at the instance of the CJN Justice Tanko Muhammad, disclosing that Chief Judges of various states would participate in the meeting.
“We are meeting with the NJC. The Chief Judges of states have been invited over the strike matter. Some of them have arrived while others will be on Zoom. We are to appear before them,” he said.
Mr Musa said that the state governors were yet to commence direct payment of monthly allocations from the federation account to the judiciary, as agreed in the series of reconciliatory meetings convened by the Labour Minister, Dr. Chris Ngige.
“They (governors) have not started paying (the funds directly to the NJC). We are waiting for the state governors to commence payment so that we can inform our workers.
“They have not started, so the NJC felt we should meet today (Tuesday).
“But we don’t know what the agenda of the meeting is,” he said.
In any case, labour minister, Dr Ngige, had assured Nigerians that the strike would be called off this week.
Dr Ngige said the implementation of the financial autonomy of the judiciary and the legislature at the state level would begin this week.