From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) have  expressed worry over recent attacks on security formations in Imo, Benue and other parts of the country, vowing to revisit the nature and depth of the crisis.

This is even as they took a position on the  Executive Order 10 by President Muhammadu Buhari for the implementation of financial autonomy for state Legislature and Judiciary, which they refused to disclosed but directed the NGF committees to meet with representatives of the judiciary and legislature on to present those resolutions directly to them.

Answering questions from newsmen shortly after NGF meeting on Wednesday night at the State House Conference Centre, Aso Villa, Chairman of NGF, and Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, said they reviewed  variety of issues on security and the economy.

Fayemi said governors resolved among other things to further engage the federal authorities both at the political level and the security level, in order to deal with the multifaceted challenges bedeviling the country.

He said they also reviewed the economy as well as Executive Order No 10 of 2020 and related matters. He said the forum took its positions on issues regarding the Order 10 and financial autonomy for the judiciary and legislature.

Fayemi, who did not disclosed the resolutions, said the Committee responsible for engaging with the representatives of the legislature and the representatives of the judiciary will convey the position of the governors to people concerned at a meeting scheduled for today, Thursday, April 15, 2021.

Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) are on strike protesting the non-implementation of financial autonomy for the nation’s judiciary.

On January 14, 2014, a  judgment of Adeniyi Ademola, then a judge of the Federal High Court, abolished the piece-meal funding of the state and federal courts by the executive.

The court held that funds meant for the judiciary should instead be disbursed directly to the heads of court and not to the executive arm of government.

The federal legislature and judiciary, have to a large extent, been enjoying financial autonomy status as they receive their appropriated funds in bulk unlike their counterparts at the state levels who always get what the governors feels like releasing to them.

In May 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari, signed the Executive Order 10 to give force to the provision of section 121(3) of the Constitution which guarantees the financial autonomy of the state legislature and state judiciary.

The Executive Order authorises the Accountant-General of the Federation to make deduction from the Federation Account the money allocated to any state of the federation “that fails to release allocation meant for the state legislature and state judiciary in line with the financial autonomy guaranteed by Section 121(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as Amended).