Lawyers protest in Lagos, Abuja over lack of Judicial autonomy
On Monday, members of the Nigerian Bar Association demonstrated in Lagos and Abuja against the judiciary’s lack of financial autonomy.
This comes after members of the Nigerian Judiciary Staff Union began a nationwide strike.
Some judicial employees gathered at the Court of Appeal’s gate in Abuja, singing solidarity songs.
Daily Times gathered that the NBA National President Olumide Akpata has asked all state branches to hold a protest on Monday.
During the protest in Lagos, lawyers carried placards with various inscriptions as they marched from Ikeja Bar Centre to the Alausa secretariat through Oba Akinjobi, Obafemi Awolowo Way, and Obafemi Awolowo Way.
JUSUN started an indefinite strike on Tuesday, April 6, 2021, in protest of the judiciary’s continuing lack of financial autonomy.
On May 22, 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) signed Executive Order 10 to enforce the financial autonomy status granted to state legislatures and judiciaries in the Nigerian Constitution.
All states must provide the allocations of both the legislature and the judiciary in the first-line charge of their budgets, according to Executive Order 10 of 2020.
The order also directs the federation’s accountant-general to subtract from the monthly allocation to each state any amounts owed to state legislatures and judiciaries for states that refuse to grant such autonomy.
