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Tag: Kogi judiciary

  • Kogi judiciary staff dies days after resumption from five months strike

    The death of a staff with the Kogi State Judiciary, Mrs Fatimah Noah (43), has been reported, a day after the  state branch of the Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), called off its five months industrial action.

    The Magistrate Court 2, Lokoja was thrown into mourning, as the news of the demise of one of their own, who was described as a dedicated staff, filtered in.

    An account had it that the deceased resumed work on Monday with her colleagues, as JUSUN called off its five months old strike, following the intervention of the National Judicial Council (NJC), in the trade dispute between the judiciary and the Kogi State government.

    It was gathered that the late Mrs Noah, a widow, popularly known as Mama Danlandi in her working place slumped and died in her residence in Lokoja, around 8PM on Thursday.

    The cause of her death is however being attributed to a yet to be established illness.

    According to one of her colleagues, she was seen on duty on Thursday, without betraying any sign of sickness or any form of discomfort in or around her, until she closed and left for home.

    A family source said since her husband died years ago, the burden of family upkeep rested on her, but that the situation was compounded by prolonged non- payment.

    “Mama Danladi who had not taken salaries for the past one year, and a widow with children in tertiary institutions, was said to have scouted for just N20,000 three days ago to address pressing needs of one of her sons in school without success,” said a source.

    The remains of late Mama Danladi was on Friday, taken to Idah, where she was buried according to Islamic rites.

  • Gov Bello and harassed Kogi judiciary

    GOVERNOR Yahaya Bello of Kogi State seems more at ease provoking critics than governing the state on which he was foisted more than three years ago. The context of his rise to the governorship in 2016 is not flattering, but he had the opportunity to transcend that murky political background by deploying his youth and energy to enthrone probably the most vigorous and enterprising state administration in Nigeria. Instead, by a combination of lackadaisical approach to governance and poor judgement, he has courted criticisms with unparalleled ardour while also bristling at the opposition. Two weeks ago, this column wondered why Mr Bello wanted a second term, especially when he has alienated virtually every sector of Kogi life. Why, the puzzle is not so remote: the governor is a political trapeze artist.

    One of those alienated sectors is the state judiciary which has been on strike for about five months over 10 months salary arrears as well as other provocative constitutional issues. The governor, citing the refusal of the judiciary to subject their staff to the state’s data capturing and futile pay-parade policies, unconstitutionally withheld the salaries of judicial staff for 10 months. The state government has stuck dogmatically to the biometric exercise as if that is the elixir needed to make the payment of salary backlogs possible. As good as data capturing is, it has proved costly, time-wasting and useless to the Kogi government which today owes civil servants months and months of salary arrears, some totalling more than 20 months.

    Probably worried that judicial workers all over Nigeria had last April threatened to go on strike if the Kogi judicial workers’ salary crisis was not resolved, and perhaps prodded by the presidency which had shown some interest in what was happening in Kogi, the National Judicial Council (NJC) sent a fact-finding mission to the state. On Wednesday, the five-man panel met the state government in company with the chief judge and then later interacted with the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN). JUSUN sources disclosed that the fact-finding mission seemed more placatory of the state government than censorious of their meddlesomeness. This consequently inspired the governor’s media chief, Kingsley Fanwo, to declare that a compromise had been reached that asked the state judiciary to embrace the government’s biometric and pay-parade policies.

    But the NJC is yet to determine its course of action in the Kogi crisis. Weeks ago, when the state legislature was being instigated to remove Chief Judge Nasir Ajana on the grounds that the state’s auditor-general had indicted him over financial wrongdoing, the state government had in addition sent a petition to the NJC accusing him of engaging in financial impropriety. But JUSUN sources indicated that the state government  in fact redacted the 2016 auditor-general’s report and gave the erroneous impression that it was a recent report. It is not clear whether the NJC fact-finding mission was actually meant to establish the veracity or otherwise of the issues raised in the petition, or, as a newspaper reported last week, try and engineer a peaceful or amicable resolution of the face-off between the state government and judiciary.

    Mr Fanwo suggests in his hasty press statement on the NJC visit that the state judiciary had been asked to submit to the state’s data capturing exercise preparatory to embracing the obnoxious and degrading pay-parade/table-payment style. JUSUN, in a statement late last week, debunked Mr Fanwo’s assertions, insisting that the substance of the discussions and conclusions between the NJC, the state’s Chief Judge and the government were inconsistent with media reports of the visit. The biometric exercise, if it came to that, said JUSUN, would be undertaken by the State Judicial Service Commission, not the state government. In any case, the union further stated, the constitution never envisaged that the judiciary would be held in thrall by the state government or humiliated by unconstitutionally withholding their salaries.

    The NJC may wish to guide themselves in writing their report by first of all discounting Mr Fanwo’s mendacities. Secondly, the judicial body must be conscious of the fact that flowing from its abysmal tameness in the matter involving the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Onnoghen, and especially because the presidency engineered his removal by foul and unconstitutional means, its independence, influence and power have been considerably whittled, if not entirely abrogated. In the Kogi matter, the NJC is expected to courageously determine whether Justice Ajana is guilty of the allegations levelled against him by the state government or whether the state government is infernally and meddlesomely wrong in the pay-parade affair. The NJC’s job is not to make peace or reconcile the state and the judiciary. Its job is primarily to let justice be done, and secondarily to protect the independence of the judiciary. Governor Bello does not understand these nuances. He should be educated. If he proves uneducable, then he should be put in his place.

    Surely, the NJC cannot pretend not to see the similarities between the deposition of Justice Onnoghen and the impetuous and impudent attempt to unseat the Kogi State Chief Judge. The similarities are striking and disturbing. This column had noted in the heat of the Onnoghen affair that the country was entering a dark tunnel of impunity whose end no one could foresee. Sadly, this generation of Nigerians is witness to the damage which politics and indiscipline in both the executive and the judiciary can inflict. It is not clear whether the NJC will blink first before Mr Bello, as they blinked repeatedly before President Muhammadu Buhari. But whatever the case, history is chronicling the roles being played by everyone and every group — some as they betray causes, and others as they ennoble causes.

  • Kogi: Judiciary prays court to nullify Assembly resolution on removal of CJ

    Kogi Judiciary on Monday approached the State High Court sitting in Koton-Karfe seeking nullification of the April 2, resolution of Kogi House of Assembly recommending the removal of the Chief Judge, Justice Nasir Ajanah.

    The motion was filed by Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, leading 11 other lawyers including five Senior Advocates of Nigeria on behalf of the claimants/applicants, Justice Ajanah and Chief Registrar of the state High Court, Alhaji Yahaya Adamu.

    Awomolo said the Motion Notice (Motion NO. HC/KK02M/201) was brought pursuant to Order 11, Rules 1 and 2 of Kogi State High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2006 to counter the action of the Assembly in defying the court order in the impasse between the Legislature and the Executive arms.

    The motion has Kogi House of Assembly; Speaker of the House; Bello Abdullahi, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee; Gov. Yahaya Bello and the Attorney-General of Kogi.

    The claimants/applicants in the motion contended that the House of Assembly defied the pendency of Suit NO. HC/KK/11CV/2018 and the interim injunctive Orders of the Court to have sat and issued a resolution in respect of the matter.

    They prayed for an order of the court nullifying and setting aside the resolution purportedly passed by the House at its plenary sitting of 2nd April, 2019 in defiance of the pendency of the suit.

    Read Also: Kogi CJ: NBA urges caution

    The action of the Legislative Assembly also defied the interim injunctive Orders of Court by acting upon a report submitted to it by its Public Accounts Committee and resolving that:

    “The Chief Judge of Kogi State (the 1st Claimant/Applicant herein) be removed for alleged gross misconduct, and

    ii) That the Chief Registrar of Kogi State High Court (2nd Claimant/Applicant herein) should be referred to the Kogi State Judicial Service Commission for disciplinary action for misconduct.”

    The motion was on the grounds that the purported resolution of the 1st-3rd defendants was made during the pendency of this suit and a subsisting order of this Court restraining the defendants from taking any steps In respect of the substantive matter.

    The motion also held that orders of court were meant to be obeyed by parties adding that the said resolution of the 1st – 3rd defendants violated the said Order of the court and amounted therefore, “to self help which is deprecated by the law.”

    It also argued that the said resolution having been mede during the pendency of the suit and a subsisting order of the Court, was a nullity under the Law and ought to be set aside.

    The High Court presided over by Justice Alaba Omolaye-Ajileye, adjourned the matter until April 12.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the motion was supported with a 15-paragraph affidavit deposed to by Alhaji Yahaya Adamu, the Chief Registrar and also one of the claimants/applicants.

    Adamu noted that the court had on Dec, 12, 2018, restrained the defendants themselves, their agents or privies from acting or threatening to act or interfere in any way detrimental to the claimants in the discharge of their duties as Chief Judge and Chief Registrar respectively.

  • Kogi judiciary protests alleged plot to sack Chief Judge

    THE Kogi State judiciary has accused Governor Yahaya Bello of plotting to remove the Chief Judge, Justice Nasir Ajanah, from office.

    A statement issued yesterday by Senior Information Officer, Kogi State Judiciary Saqeeb Saeed alleged that the governor planned to remove Ajanah by using the Speaker of the House of Assembly.

    But surprisingly later yesterday, the House of Assembly recommended the removal of Justice Ajanah for alleged gross misconduct.

    This followed the “adoption of the report and recommendations of the House Committee on Public Account”, which indicted the state High Court and Hajj Commission of financial breaches.

    The statement by Saeed reads: “Events in the last few days have made it necessary for the Kogi State Judiciary to issue this press statement. The Kogi State Judiciary is aware of clandestine moves by His Excellency, Governor Yahaya Bello, to use the Speaker of the House of Assembly to illegally remove the Chief Judge, Justice Nasiru Ajanah, from office over some trumped up allegations.

    “This dangerous and ill-advised move is coming from the executive in spite of the fact that the matter is now before the National Judicial Council (NJC), and there is a subsisting court order restraining the governor from doing so.

    “The governor is advised not to do anything that will plunge the state into an unnecessary constitutional crisis. Rather, he should obey the rule of law and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which he swore to uphold.

    “Meanwhile, workers of the judiciary should remain calm, as the rule of law shall prevail at the end.”

    The staff of the judiciary had on Monday marched through some major streets of the capital, Lokoja, protesting the alleged plan to sack Ajanah.

    The speaker, Prince Mathew Kolawole, however, denied knowledge of such plan.

    Kolawole, who was at the Government House on Monday, responded to reporters’ enquiry on the issue, saying he was unaware of the name(s) of such person(s) making the allegations.

    The Assembly, however, said the Chief Judge could step aside to defend himself over the indictment by the state’s auditor-general.

    The House also recommended punitive measures on those indicated, to “avoid a reoccurrence”.

    It directed the state government to urgently resume payment of salaries of judicial workers.

    The report of the Committee on Public Accounts on the state “Auditor General’s report on the 2016 Financial Statements (Budget Performance Analysis on Personnel Cost, Overheads, Capital Expenditure and Revenue Performance of Kogi State for the Year Ended December 31, 2016)”, was presented by its chairman, Ahmed Mohammed.