Nigeria: Magistrates Issue Seven-Day Strike Notice Over Poor Welfare

“Magistrates are seen daily on public or commercial vehicles, most times alongside litigants and criminal suspects standing trial before them. This is a security risk to their lives.”

Magistrates in Cross River State have threatened to go on strike over lack of promotion and poor welfare.

The magistrates, under the aegis of the Magistrates Association of Nigeria, Cross River State Chapter, issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Cross River State Government on Wednesday at the end of their meeting in Calabar.

In a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, Godwin Onah and Solomon Abuo, the association’s president and secretary, respectively, said that some magistrates have remained “stagnated since 2015”.

The association said the N15,000 monthly imprest given to magistrates in Cross River was meagre when compared with their colleagues in other states that “receive between N200,000 and N250,000 monthly”.

They demanded the rehabilitation of magistrate courts across the state and the provision of official vehicles to them.

The magistrates decried the state government’s inability to pay the yearly robing allowance to their members as applicable nationwide.

“To protect the welfare of members, uphold minimum standards and sanctity of the magistrates in the state, we need immediate action on our demands.

“Magistrates are seen daily on public or commercial vehicles, most times alongside litigants and criminal suspects standing trial before them, this is a security risk to their lives.

“This will leave magistrates with no other option but to embark on a warning industrial action for two weeks in line with the extant labour laws effective from Wednesday, 13 November.

“All services will be withdrawn from Wednesday, thereafter, will proceed on an indefinite strike if the government fails to implement their demands,” the communique stated.

(NAN)