JUSUN vs Abia Government: Strip Away the Politics — The Record Shows Otti Is Acting by Process, Not Bad Faith
Let us remove the political spin and stay with the documented facts.
Under Governor Alex Otti, the Abia State Government has not shown hostility to judiciary workers as a matter of policy. In January 2025, the government and JUSUN reached an agreement through negotiation, signed an MoU, and the strike was suspended after arrears tied to delayed minimum-wage implementation were addressed. That is an important fact because it shows that this government has previously engaged JUSUN, negotiated with them, and resolved disputes through dialogue and implementation.
The current quarrel is narrower and more technical. It is about whether leave bonus/leave allowance is already embedded in the consolidated salary structure of judiciary workers. The government’s position, publicly stated by the Attorney General, is that the Office of the Accountant General found that judiciary workers’ consolidated salary already contains a leave-bonus component, and that if JUSUN proves otherwise, payment will be made within 48 hours. That is not a refusal to pay. It is a request for verification before making what government believes could become a duplicate payment.
That is where some of the union rhetoric begins to overreach. When JUSUN says government is choosing which laws to obey, that is a political charge. But the government’s public response is not: “we will never pay.” Its response is: show us that this component is not already inside your consolidated pay, and we will pay quickly. In any salary dispute, especially one involving a consolidated structure, asking for documentary clarity is an administrative duty, not an attack on the rule of law.
The same applies to the burden-of-proof argument. JUSUN says government should prove its own claim. But once government says its records show that leave bonus is already embedded in the salary structure, the practical next step is obvious: the union should produce the pay structure, circular, or payroll evidence showing that the component is absent. If JUSUN truly has the documents, then pragmatism demands producing them and ending the strike. Prolonging a shutdown without settling that central evidentiary issue weakens the union’s moral advantage. This is an inference, but it is strongly supported by the publicly stated positions of both sides.
There is another point often ignored in the rhetoric: the government also linked the strike to stalled staff verification and the resulting delay in getting pensioners properly processed on the judiciary’s platform. That broadens the issue beyond a single allowance dispute and suggests the government is looking at system order, payroll integrity, and proper administration, not merely trying to deny workers what is due them.
So, the clean and pro-Otti reading is this:
Governor Alex Otti’s government has shown good faith, openness to dialogue, readiness to sign agreements, and willingness to pay once entitlement is properly established. The January 2025 JUSUN settlement proves that. In the present 2026 dispute, the government has again left the door open by publicly offering payment within 48 hours once contrary evidence is produced. That is not wickedness. That is fiscal caution and administrative responsibility.
JUSUN leaders should therefore be more pragmatic. They should reduce the political temperature, submit the relevant salary evidence, and allow facts—not agitation—to close the matter. If the records support them, they will be paid. If not, then the public deserves honesty, not slogans.
This issue should move from accusation to documentation, from confrontation to verification, and from rhetoric to resolution.
AProf Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke
