The leadership of the Osun State chapter of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria, JUSUN, has been dissolved.
The national body of JUSUN ordered the dissolution as it also replaced the Osun JUSUN leadership with a three-man caretaker committee.
The chairman of the three-man caretaker committee, Rasaq Lawal, confirmed the dissolution of the Gbenga Eludire executives on Monday.
According to Lawal, “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 two other 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.”
Also, an Osun JUSUN member who craved anonymity confirmed the development. He stated that the union’s national leadership had sacked the Eludire-led exco.
He said the move is to allow for the resolution of the months-long crisis in the Osun State judiciary.
He, however, revealed that “The tenure of Eludire executives was extended, but after weighing some other options before it, the national secretariat agreed that the executives should be dissolved.
“A three-man caretaker committee had been raised to take over and administer the affairs of the Osun JUSUN for three months.
“The three-man caretaker committee is led by Mr Rasaq Lawal, and it is expected to swing into action and resolve the issues that led to the strike as quickly as possible,” the JUSUN leader said.
Recall that a delegation of JUSUN national leadership visited Eludire in December 2023.
After the meeting, Eludire stated his tenure, which was ending, had been extended indefinitely to enable him to complete the struggle for better welfare for Osun court workers.
In November 2023, the Eludire-led Osun JUSUN declared an indefinite strike, leading to the paralysis of judicial activities.
Courts in the state have been under lock and key as the union locked horns with the Osun State Chief Judge, Justice Oyebola Adepele Ojo.
Judicial workers in the state were directed to embark on an indefinite strike after police personnel on Wednesday, November 22, 2023, teargassed JUSUN members from physically assaulting Ojo, whom they accused of abuse of office and high-handedness.
JUSUN members had begun a protest and picketed the state high court in Osogbo on Monday, November 20, 2023.
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 the National Judicial Council rejected.
The national JUSUN also, in a statement in November, dissociated itself from the strike embarked upon by the Osun chapter.
It warned that politicians would not use the association as a weapon to settle any political scores.
However, Eludire insisted that the strike would go on regardless of the position of the union’s national body.
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.
He has not, however, reacted to the latest development as of the time of filing this report.
