Abuja – A nongovernmental organization known as Social Justice League is seeking a speedy investigation into the allegations that judges and other judicial officers who were part of the just concluded election panel tribunals nationwide have not yet been paid their allowances while funds had been budgeted for and approved for the exercise.
It also expressed fears that equipment used at the tribunal might have been frittered away saying that those items are still needed for subsequent election tribunal panels instead of wasting public funds at every election circle for new equipment.
The group also demands that “the President of the Court of Appeal, Honourable Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, should be asked whether or not equipment including computers purchased and used by the tribunal members during the just concluded election tribunals were returned to the Court of Appeal as government property or not. If they were returned, where are they?”
The group that focuses on advocacy for the social rights of every citizen, in a press statement signed by its spokesperson, Mr. Salisu Ibrahim, yesterday stated that its finding reveals that “there is so much injustice in the judiciary against non-Muslims judicial officers. There is undue politicization at the Court of Appeal designed to execute certain religious agenda which should be condemned totally and investigated.
“The League equally decries the gradual Islamization agenda in the judiciary saying that there is a need to probe the promotion of judicial officers under Justice Bulkachuwa administration”, it stated.
The statement also alleged that “there is serious discontent in the judiciary, especially at the Court of Appeal over unpaid judges’ allowances, disappearance of computers after tribunal sitting, religious bent in judicial administration”, among other things.
It would be recalled that the President of the Court of Appeal, Honourable Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa constituted election tribunal panels to determine the petitions brought by political parties and their candidates that lost out in the different category of the 2019 General Elections, including Presidential, Governorship, National Assembly and the State House of Assembly Elections conducted nationwide.
According to the statement, “several judges and judicial officers are grumblings over the nonpayment of their allowances during and after the tribunal. Some of the judges are said not to be happy that their welfare during the sitting was poorly handled. There are grumblings that so many of them were lodged in small and poor maintained hotels”, the group maintained.
According to the group, “some judicial officers who are afraid of speaking openly as judicial have been silently expressing their dissatisfaction with the President of the Court of Appeal, Honourable Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa over alleged nonpayment of allowances approved for them. The Mrs President needs to address these issues because her integrity is at stake”.