Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, says his administration is currently facing a staggering N17 billion judgment debt slammed on it by a state High Court.
Okorocha disclosed this while responding to the addresses delivered in Owerri, during the assizes of Imo State Judiciary.
This is as the state Chief Judge, CJ, Justice Paschal Nnadi expressed concern over the level of insecurity around serving judges and magistrates and the depleting staff strength of the Imo State Judiciary.
“This administration is currently facing a N17 billion judgment debt handed down by a particular Judge of the state High Court. This money is already under garnishee. This money was meant to pay judges”, Okorocha said.
The governor said that he had no apologies for retiring the Accountant General of the state for failing to pay salaries as expressly directed.
On the appointment of judges, Okorocha requested that it should be thrown open.
“I am requesting that the appointment of judges must be thrown open. What we have now is elitist conspiracy. A situation where a few individuals meet and decide on who becomes a judge, must be stopped”, Okorocha said.
While using the opportunity to roll out his achievements in office, the governor equally said that most lawyers in the audience would not have qualified to practice, if not for the free education policy of his administration.
“Most of the submissions by the speakers today (yesterday), are fabricated fallacies. There had been governments before me. I have only been governor for seven years and the level of dilapidation complained by the speakers, did not start from me”, Okorocha said.
On the destruction of Ekeukwu Owerri, the governor said “it was deliberate because it was a breeding ground for criminals.”
Imo CJ laments killing of senior magistrate, contracting work force
Also, at the event, the state Chief Judge, CJ, Justice Paschal Nnadi, expressed concern over the level of insecurity around serving judges and magistrates, as well as the depleting staff strength of the Imo State Judiciary.
Disclosing this in a 22-page address he delivered yesterday in Owerri, at the opening of the 2018/2019 Legal Year and Assizes of the State Judiciary.
“The recent killing of a serving Senior Magistrate, Mr. R. C. Ogu by yet to be identified gunmen, is a clear testimony of the lack of security arrangement for Judges, Magistrates and Chairmen of Customary Courts”, Nnadi said.
While saying that he was “still awaiting some form of report on the outcome of the investigations so far carried out by the police and other law enforcement agencies to unmask those behind the heinous killing of the serving Senior Magistrate”, the CJ recalled with grief that many judicial officers were at varying times, attacked by armed hoodlums.
“It must also be mentioned that in the past, many Judges and Magistrates have been attacked by armed bandits and kidnappers and some are left with scars of the trauma and continuation of medical treatment to extract bullets and pellets lodged in their bodies in the course of the attacks”, Nnadi said.
The CJ fumed that the usual excuse given by some security agencies of lack of personnel and manpower to adequately protect judicial officers, can no longer be accepted as such negates international norms and best practices.
Making special reference to case statistics, the CJ said that the number of cases pending in the state High Court, as at September 30, 2018, stood at 7,154, while the cases filed, within the period under review, totalled 31,760.
“The above analysis paints a very sorry and pitiable state of the case load in all courts in Imo State. There is now very urgent need to appoint more Judges, Magistrates and chairmen and members of customary courts, so as to reduce the suffocating workload on our judicial officers and avoid total breakdown and collapse of the administration of justice in Imo State”, Nnadi said.
He called on Governor Rochas Okorocha to rescind the withdrawal of the approval given for the appointment of new judges, as Imo State will lose the opportunity to appoint judges in two consecutive years.
Speaking on behalf of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, BOSAN, Chief Mike Ahamba, expressed regret that “Imo people did not get a government for the people, since the interest of the citizenry is not part of the agenda of the present state government.”
