We Will Continue With Strike Action – Judiciary Staff

Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) has vowed to continue its ongoing strike.

Gatekeepers News reports that the Judiciary Staff have threatened to continue their ongoing strike despite the agreement earlier reached between them and the State governments.

On May 20, the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, announced that JUSUN, Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) and states governors agreed on modalities of full financial autonomy for various arms of government at the state level.

Gatekeepers News reported that the implementation structures according to the document of the agreement, must be put in place within a time frame not exceeding 45 days from the date of signing this document.

However, JUSUN has turned its back on this decision to end the strike that started on April 6, because state governors had failed to sign the agreement and begin implementation as expected.

The Union’s National Treasurer, Jimoh Musa, on Monday, stated that the governors are yet to sign the agreement.

Musa said, “Up till this moment, the governors have not appended their signatures on the agreement.

“They proposed all those paragraphs that were not even acceptable to us, but because we want peace to reign and start from somewhere, we signed that agreement for them to go and countersign. They reneged on the agreement they brought before us.”

According to him, the Federal Account Allocation Committee had recently disbursed money to the states and it appeared the money had been utilised; thus, the governors abandoned the agreement.

He noted that “Even if they sign today, where is the money to credit the account of the judiciary as promised as contained in the agreement?

“We are resolute; we will tell the whole world the kind of people we are dealing with and the strike will continue in another shape.”

He added that the union was aware that Courts (Supreme Court and Court of Appeal) have been delivering judgments despite the JUSUN strike.

“We discovered the virtual judgments and proceedings that were going on. Some of them are not even at the court premises. They do it from their homes.

“We have appealed to them today that we will not like to hear any judgment or proceeding from any court. We have posted people to different courts to ensure that nobody goes through the court anymore until this matter is resolved.”