The national body of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria has dissolved the Osun State leadership of the union and replaced it with a three-man caretaker committee.
According to The PUNCH, the chairman of the three-man caretaker committee, Lawal, confirmed the dissolution of Eludire’s executives to our correspondent.
Lawal said, “We are in a critical time. The last executives have been dissolved by the national body and a caretaker has been put in place and a letter to that effect has been sent to us.
“I have been nominated as the chairman of the caretaker committee and we have other two members as well. The caretaker position would last for the first three months after which there can be an election.
“We will be there for that three months to put things in place.”
The Osun JUSUN, under the leadership of Gbenga Eludire, had since November 22, 2023, declared an indefinite strike, leading to the paralysis of judicial activities in the state.
Eludire directed the Osun court workers to proceed on strike after policemen on November 22 teargassed JUSUN members, who had begun a protest and picketed the state high court in Osogbo, from physically assaulting the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Adepele Ojo, whom they accused of abuse of office and high-handedness.
The protest by the court workers came amid the move by Governor Ademola Adeleke’s government to suspend the Chief Judge and appoint the next most senior high court judge as acting CJ, a move that was rejected by the National Judicial Council.
The national JUSUN had in a statement in November dissociated itself from the strike embarked upon by the Osun chapter, warning that the association would not lend itself as a weapon in the hands of politicians “to settle any perceived or real political scores.”
However, the chairman of Osun JUSUN, Eludire, insisted that the strike would go on regardless of the position of the national body of the union.
Even after the NJC rejected the request by the state government to suspend the Chief Judge, Eludire insisted that the strike would continue until Osun court workers’ demand for better welfare was met.
