Ademola Adeleke, the governor of Osun State, has been given ten days by Ibadan-based attorney Mutalubi Adebayo, SAN, to make up the allowance arrears owing to retired and active judges in the state or risk legal action.
According to a statement signed by Adebayo on Thursday, September 21, which our correspondent in Osogbo was able to get, if Adeleke does not comply with the request by September 30, legal action would be brought on October 3 in a court of competent jurisdiction to force him to pay.
In a communication to our reporter, ProbitasNews, the attorney, who acknowledged writing the document, added that in addition to the unpaid allowance arrears, he would also be claiming interest and punitive penalties for the underpaid entitlements.
The rest of Adebayo’s statement said as follows: “This serves as a notice to the Governor, the Government, and the Judicial Service Commission of Osun State of Nigeria that if all the arrears of allowances being owed to all the Judicial Officers in the state (both serving and retired) from the tenure of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola till date are not liquidated on or before the 30th day of September 2023, I, JCI Senator Mutalubi Ojo Adebayo, SAN, shall on the third day of October 2023 commence legal action in a court of competent jurisdiction to recover the full amount of the said unpaid allowances from the stated government of Osun State and its Judicial Service Commission.
“Take notice that I will also be pursuing interest and punitive damages for those unpaid allowances. The Osun State Government’s repeated refusal to pay these amounts amounts to blatant disregard for the law, indecency, and callousness.”
Regulator Olawale Rasheed, the governor’s spokeswoman, has not responded to the statement at the time the report was filed.
