IF things go according to plan, and in all probability they will, judicial officers at the federal and state levels across the country will begin enjoying a 300 per cent salary increase. Nigeria’s Red Chamber, the Senate, approved a bill to that effect last week. This was a sequel to the report presented to the chamber by the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, chaired by Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno (APC- Borno North). The report considered an executive bill transmitted by President Bola Tinubu, which sought to prescribe improved salaries and allowances as well as other fringe benefits for judicial officers and workers. The executive bill forwarded by the President is titled “A Bill for an Act to Prescribe the Salaries, Allowances and Fringe Benefits of Judicial Office Holders in Nigeria and for Related Matters”. When it is similarly passed by the House of Representatives and assented to by the president, the Chief Justice of Nigeria will get an annual salary of N64 million. The President of the Court of Appeal will earn N62.4million, while Justices of the Supreme Court will earn N61.4million each. On their part, heads of courts, including the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory High Court and the President of the National Industrial Court, among others, will earn the same basic salary of N7.9 million annually.
At the public hearing on the bill unanimously endorsed by the Senate, Senator Monguno had said that the proposed legislation was long overdue given the present economic realities and high inflation in the country. According to him, the bill was quite innovative, because apart from an increment in the basic salary, it also took into consideration certain peculiarities of the administrative structure and operational mechanism of the judiciary. He added that when passed into law, the bill would birth an appropriate and commensurate remuneration that would guarantee the independence and integrity of the judiciary. Adequate remuneration, he averred, would allow judicial officers to focus on their professional development without worrying about financial constraint; hence it will improve their professionalism and decision-making skills.
For long, there had been complaints about the pay of Nigerian judges. There was a consensus around the fact that compared to their colleagues in other parts of Africa and the globe, Nigerian judges were severely underpaid. Indeed, this issue was one of the most salient to which senior lawyers like the late Gani Fawehinmi (SAN) always drew attention. Nigerians have also apparently not forgotten that a few years ago, judges of Nigeria’s apex court addressed a letter to the then CJN, complaining about a number of issues, including the extremely poor funding of their offices and the lack of basic materials that could facilitate their work. Against this backdrop, the proposed hike in the earnings of judges is understandable. If the latest move by the Senate addresses some of the concerns that members of the Bar and the Bench have expressed at various fora, it is a welcome development. Judges, like other Nigerians, deserve to be paid decent wages. They do not deserve to live in penury.
That said, however, we hasten to add that the challenges confronting the Nigerian judiciary are so deep, and so grave, that a mere increase in the salaries of judges can be no more than an appetiser flung in the face of the severely malnourished and famished justice system. There is the critical issue of pervasive corruption within the judiciary and its corollary, namely the people’s scant, or in some cases even non-existent, trust in the system. Among other drawbacks, the issue of conflicting judgments on even the most basic facts of law, which has thrown up allegations of graft and judicial malpractice, continues to assail every effort to present Nigeria’s judicial house as a fair and balanced outfit. It is clear that if it is to assist Nigeria in consolidating democracy, the judiciary must embark on soul-searching and house cleaning. Along with reasonable pay, there must be an overhaul of the entire justice administration system.
Besides, it is quite significant that as reflection of the persisting insensitivity of the rulers in Nigeria to the plight of the masses and common workers, the award of a 300 percent pay rise for judicial officers stands in contrast to the unending negotiations by the government with labour unions on an increase in the national minimum wage. Coming as it were after the members of the executive arm of government jacked up their own remunerations while the legislators increased budgetary allocations to themselves, the point has been made that Nigerian rulers are more concerned with themselves and their families than the ordinary Nigerian. We can only hope that instead of negotiating endlessly with workers, the government will take a cue from the publicly available argument justifying the judicial pay rise, namely the prevailing economic conditions, and grant workers the right to a commensurate pay rise at the level of the same 300 percent proposed for judges. This is a most reasonable cause of action given that all Nigerians and not just judicial workers are affected by the economic conditions, and everybody functions within the same economy and market.
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