Adeleke receives a 10-day ultimatum to pay judges’ allowances or faces legal action

Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke has been given a 10-day ultimatum by Ibadan-based attorney Mutalubi Adebayo, SAN, to pay the arrears of allowances owing to retired and sitting judges in the state or face legal action.

In a self-signed declaration dated Thursday, September 21, which our correspondent in Osogbo was able to secure, Adebayo threatened to take legal action on September 30 to force Adeleke to comply with the request, and on October 3 he would appear in court to make good on his word.

The attorney, who verified that he was the statement’s author in a message to our correspondent, added that in addition to the unpaid entitlements’ arrears, he would also seek interest and punitive penalties.

“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 Government of Osun State and its Judicial Service Commission.

“Take further notice that I will also be requesting interest and aggravated damages for those unpaid allowances, as the Osun State Government’s repeated refusal to pay them amounts to indecency, indecency, recklessness, and a complete disregard for the rule of law.”

But as of the time the story was filed, Olawale Rasheed, the governor’s spokeswoman, had not responded to the remark.