Unpaid salaries: Court freezes Plateau, Benue’s accounts

Unpaid salaries: Court freezes Plateau, Benue’s accounts

For the refusal of Benue and Plateau State
Governments to pay court workers, accounts
belonging to the two states in Skye, Zenith and First
Banks have been frozen by a Federal High Court in
Abuja.
Justice Ademola Adeniyi gave the order while ruling
on two ex-parte motions filed by the Judiciary Staff
Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), who sought to freeze the
states’ accounts in the banks over their alleged
refusal to pay about N1.6 billion to satisfy the
January 13, 2014 judgement given by the judge
He said: “An order nisi is hereby made attaching the
money belonging to the 15th and 16th judgement
debtors/respondents domiciled with Skye Bank Plc,
Makurdi Branch – account number 170008758 to
satisfy the judgement awarded in favour of the
judgement creditor/applicant”.
Justice Adeniyi also made a similar order in relation
to Plateau State’s accounts in the banks, ordering
the “garnishee to show cause why the order nisi
should not be made absolute by the court.”
The union stated, in their ex-parte motions, that the
amount due to Benue State judiciary “as at March
2015, is N957,630,349.57” and the amount due to the
Plateau State judiciary for the same period is
N673,019,948.19.
Governors Gabriel Suswam (Benue), Jonah Jang
(Plateau) and their Attorneys-General were listed as
the 15th and 16th; 63rd and 64th defendants in the
motions.
JUSUN said Benue and Plateau, who were parties in
the main suit, have “bluntly refused to obey the
judgement of the court”.
It said governments of both states owe their workers,
who are members of the union “arrears of salary
and other funds due to them up to March, 2015”.
They stated, in the supporting affidavits, that all
efforts made to the state governments “to comply
with the judgement of this honourable court fell on
deaf ears”.
The case has been adjourned to June 1.