The Nigerian Senate has today asked the Nigerian Governors across the 36 states of the federation to save the country’s fragile democracy from crumbling by complying to implement the judicial autonomy in their respective states to guarantee their independence as an arm of government.
This was raised by the chairman of the Senate Committee on judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele while reacting to the protest staged by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in support of the striking judicial staff.
President Buhari had last year signed an executive order No. 10 into law captioned “the implementation of financial autonomy for state legislature and judiciary Order, 2020”.
By implication, the said order granted the power to the Accountant-General of the federation to deduct from the allocations due to states from the federation accounts any sum appropriated for either the state lawmakers of the judicial arm where the state fails to comply with the order as the case may be and subsequently pay the fund directly into the accounts of the concerned arms.
Updating journalist on the matter, Senator Bamidele said that autonomy of the Judiciary is non-negotiable and the state governors have to do the needful by granting independence to these arms of government.
The lawmaker said, “It is laughable that at this point, we are still grappling with the need to grant independence to the judiciary arm of government at the state level and at the local government levels.
“The National Assembly has been making laws that would guarantee full autonomy to the judiciary at the Federal level.
Bamidele explained that “The National Assembly does not make laws for the states; such power resides in the state Houses of Assembly.
He called on the state Assembly to do what is expected of them. He added as principal, his committee members has to allow the protesters to do so without interference, as they needed to air their view.
Bamidele said though protest should be the last resort, the senate shall prevail on the state governors and the state House of Assembly with other stakeholders to do the needful in the interest of democracy and the public.
The lawmaker said they cannot continue to prevail on the Judiciary as they are aware the status co does not guarantee good service delivery in the system.
He explained, “This is central and crucial to the independence of the judiciary in this country. We must not be left behind by the rest of the civilized world.
“Nobody stands to lose anything by granting independence to judiciary at the state level since it has been done at the national level.
He revealed that the Federal Judicial staff had joined the protest was just a matter of unionism solidarity otherwise the federal Judiciary has no problem.
He concluded that no democracy can survive without being funded through rule of law and the Independence of the Judiciary.