BREAKING: Nigeria’s AGF to meet Judiciary Workers 2 weeks after Courts’ shutdown

 

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice in Nigeria, Abubakar Malami, will meet with leadership of the striking Judiciary workers on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, day it will be exactly 14 days that Courts in the country, including the Supreme  Court, have been shut down.

National Public Relations Officer of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), Mrs. Selepreye Koin, who disclosed this at the Platforms Africa e-Discourse on Saturday, Day 11 of the strike, maintained that previous meetings scheduled by the AGF were called off.

“Well, the Federal Government through the Minister of Labour and employment met with us on Monday, 12th of April, where he sympathised with JUSUN and promised to schedule another meeting with the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF).

Malami

“Aside from the meeting with the Hon. Minister for labour and employment, no other meeting has been held. The NGF earlier scheduled a meeting for Wednesday, it was rescheduled for Thursday. And on Thursday we received a message that the meeting with NGF has been cancelled indefinitely.

“Also, the Committee on Judiciary in the House of Reps met with us and promised to reach the NGF. We just got a message for another meeting for Tuesday now,” she declared on the e-Discourse, a programme organised weekly by the Platforms Africa, an e-Community of intellectuals, opinion leaders and policy moulders across the continent against misinformation on issues of general concern to growth in Africa.

Reacting to the pains the strike have inflicted on many awaiting-trial inmates, Koin said, “It is very saddening, for anything to be right, some persons will be affected adversely.

“This is unhealthy for the society, as prisons, police stations are already congested. This is the reason we want our leaders (governors) who have sworn to an oath to protect and obey the constitution to do so as quickly as possible to help return normalcy in the society.”

On the key demand of the union, she said; “There are four key demand and they are; 1. The Autonomy of the Judiciary as enshrined in the Nigeria Constitution; 2. Immediate payment of Workers Salaries owed by States Governors; 3. Demand the withdrawal of the bill seeking to withdraw the Minimum Wage from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent list; and 4. Rejecting the Kaduna State action of subjecting the Judiciary under the Executive Arm of government.”

She added that lessons for African nations, she said; ” is learning how to keep to the tenets of their guilding principles and laws. A society where the laws are only for the poor stand a risk of chaos.”

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