Battle For Financial Autonomy: Police Take Over National Assembly

Police take over NASS complex, lock gate
Officers of the Nigerian Police Force mobilized to the National Assembly complex on Monday barred members of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) from gaining entrance.

The lawyers are on a peaceful march in solidarity with judiciary workers who are protesting financial autonomy.

However, security officials locked up the two gates to National Assembly upon sighting the protesters.

“People like you can’t just be in the National Assembly…” one of the security officers told the lawyers.

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had on Friday directed its branch chairmen nationwide to lead “visits” to government houses in their states.

A statement by the president of the association, Olumide Akpata, directed the branch chairmen to lead the “visits”, which are more like peaceful protests, on Monday, and on all other subsequent Mondays until the demand for the judiciary’s financial autonomy is met.

It urged the branch leaders “to effectively mobilise their members” for the “visit to the governors at the state government houses” to press home the demand.

The association said, during the visits, the branch leaders should “present a jointly written demand to their state governors requesting full compliance with existing legislative instruments and court judgments on the financial autonomy of the judiciary.”

It also urged them “to ensure that these visits are embarked upon, every subsequent Monday until there is full compliance with this demand that is aimed at strengthening our democracy and the dispensation of justice.”

JUSUN since April 6, 2021, left the courts in Nigeria under lock and key because of the non-implementation of financial autonomy for the judiciary as the third arm of government.

They commenced a nationwide strike today, April 19, 2021.