One intriguing fallout from the ongoing nationwide strike of judiciary workers must be seen in the attempt by the Nigerian Governors Forum to make President Muhammadu Buhari’s Executive Order 10 as the main issue.
That position, in the opinion of this newspaper, is both opportunistic and diversionary. In the first place, that matter, already settled, is a constitutional one requiring no further negotiation. The issue is that it’s been nearly three years since President Buhari assented the Constitution Fourth Alteration Bill which grants financial autonomy and independence to states Houses of Assembly and their judiciaries .
The above is however not to deny some grounds on which aspects of the order might be deemed rather expansive, to put it mildly. Indeed, while it seems doubtful that the president can, via an executive order, direct states on matters contained in the Concurrent Legislative list, even more doubtful is whether an order dictating to the states, going as far as to threaten to manage the funds accruing to them in the consolidated revenue of the federation could be deemed to be lawful.
But then, those issues are separate from the amendment as already incorporated into the nation’s organic law and which the governors were sworn to uphold.
That the governors chose to dither on something as fundamental as implementing a provision of the constitution that came by way of an amendment is not only regrettable, it amounts to an intolerable dereliction of duty. That it happened can only be explained by greed and lust for power – a case of their unwillingness to let go of their control of another branch of government.
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