Industrial strike loom in the Judiciary arm of the government even as the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN ), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola averted a nationwide shut down of courts in the country on Monday .
Aggrieved members of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), are grumbling loud and regretting the decision of JUSUN’s leadership putting off the commencement of their indefinite strike till this month end .
Some leaders of Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) had met with the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Ariwoola over the weekend where he persuaded them to suspend their planned strike scheduled to commence( yesterday) Monday, November 13th 2023.
JUSUN in a communique said that after a marathon meeting with the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) at the Supreme Court complex in Abuja, it allowed court activities across the country to continue unhindered until November ending to allow CJN and Federal government to sort out the omission of Judiciary workers from Palliative.
Besides the omission of the entire judiciary staff in the implementation of N35,000 monthly palliative , the workers are also aggrieved that 40% peculiar allowance for judiciary workers have not been paid since April.
The workers are at pain that the Peculiar Allowance which was approved on August 9, 2023 by National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission for implementation with effect from 1st January 2023 is still in abeyance and no kobo has been paid, even though an approval was equally given for an estimated sum of N7,959,976,775.20 Bn per annum to settle it.
They said that the argument put forward by CJN that Judiciary was omitted in the list of federal government agencies to benefit from its Palliative was not true because they have seen the circular on the N35,000 wage award in which NJC was listed.
The national judicial council is custodian of all the funds accrue to federal judiciary including the monthly federation account allocation and N35 billion granted to the judiciary as palliative funds goes to it directly for onward distribution to all federal courts .
Therefore, workers are apprehensive that their palliatives must have been spent by the managements of National Judicial Council and Supreme Court on capital projects.
They are worried about hint of alleged deliberate conspiracy between the NJC and some top echelons in the judiciary to convert the funds to selfish aggrandisement through the execution of some capital expenditures to the detriment of staff who were the intended beneficiaries of the palliative.
They quickly point to ongoing massive renovations of Justices residents and an alleged purchased of Mercedes Benz cars from Germany for justices as a possible expenditures that their palliatives might have gone into to their detriment.
According to them 85% of judiciary workers survive on bank loans to cater for their families to the extent that majority of the staff are currently on zero salary, they lives from hand to mouth despite of the huge allocation they get from the federal government.