Nigeria Content Online

The strike embarked
upon by judiciary workers in Delta State on Monday stalled the
proceedings at the Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in Asaba.

The News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN) reports that the tribunal failed to sit on arrival at the
venue designated for it, as the premises had been locked by the
workers, who were on strike.

The striking workers pasted notices around the courts stating that the action would last indefinitely in the state.

The Secretary of the tribunal, Deborah Musa, told NAN that the strike had paralysed activities in the tribunal.

“We arrived for
work this morning and found the whole place locked up and we saw the
notice that judiciary workers in the state are on an indefinite strike.

“I quickly rushed
to look for the leaders of the workers and for more than one hour I
begged them to come and open the premises so that we can evacuate our
files and other items,” she said.

Asked where she would put the files, Mrs Musa said, “I don’t really know where I am taking them to.

You know, we don’t know anywhere or anybody here. Maybe I will put them in my hotel room in the meantime.”

Harmonised salary

When contacted, the
Vice-Chairman of the Judiciary Workers Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), James
Onanowe, said, “the workers want to be included in the harmonised
public service salary.”

He said that the union resorted to strike when the state government failed to respond to its letter on the issue dated April 4.

He added that the
decision to embark on the strike was taken by the union’s leadership on
Friday, adding that “before we took that decision, we exhaustively
deliberated on the matter.”

Also in his own
comments, the Commissioner for Information, Oma Djebah, said he was not
aware of the workers’ strike and pleaded for time to “find out the real
issues”.