There is a quiet violence that does not draw blood yet destroys institutions. In Kogi State, that violence is the persistent, deliberate failure to pay retired judicial officers their pensions and gratuities, entitlements that are not “favours”, not “handouts” and certainly not “benevolence”, but earned rights secured by law and the constitutional architecture of judicial independence.
When a state government reduces retired judges, men and women who spent decades defending the rule of law, to a life of indignity, uncertainty, and economic vulnerability, it is not just pensioners who are being punished. The judiciary itself is being disciplined. And the message to serving judges is chillingly clear: their comfort in retirement depends on their pliability in office.
This is not a new scandal in Kogi. For many years under the last administration, salaries and pensions were held, and eventually fractions of such salaries were paid after many had answered the final call. Also, reports of unpaid judicial entitlements in the state have surfaced repeatedly for years, with retired judicial officers publicly appealing for their benefits. The persistence of the problem is what makes it so poisonous; it is suggestive of a pattern, not an oversight.
A judiciary that must look to the executive for survival—even after retirement—is not independent. It is managed. It is economic intimidation.
A serving Judge who watches predecessors struggle for years to receive pensions and gratuities will inevitably internalise the implied threat. At that point, the “separation of powers” becomes mere civic poetry, nice for textbooks, but useless in practice.
And it is doubly dangerous now, at a time when public confidence in the Judiciary is already strained. When citizens believe justice is slow, selective, or purchasable, the Judiciary’s only real capital is credibility. But credibility cannot survive in an ecosystem where the Executive holds the Judiciary’s welfare as ransom.
It is not enough for the National Judicial Council to express concern every now and then and retreat into institutional silence.
True, the NJC has condemned non-payment of retirement benefits to state judges and directed chief judges to report compliance. But condemnation without consequence is not a remedy. If the NJC truly understands that unpaid judicial benefits undermine the rule of law (as it has acknowledged), then it must move from rhetoric to enforcement. This is especially urgent given the continuing national debate that judicial pension administration remains structurally weak and vulnerable to executive sabotage.
At minimum, the NJC should publish state-by-state compliance dashboards, issue formal compliance deadlines, and deploy the strongest lawful measures available—administrative, procedural, and intergovernmental pressure—against governors who treat judicial welfare as discretionary spending.
The most insulting part of this story is the predictable excuse: “There is no money.”
Nigeria’s public finance realities are complicated, but in recent months, multiple credible reports have described historically high FAAC inflows and sharp year-on-year increases in allocations. Indeed, this has been acknowledged by most state governors, including Alh. Usman Ododo, the Kogi State Governor.
So, when a state receiving “unprecedented” inflows cannot fulfil one of the most legally and morally compelling obligations of paying retired judges, citizens are entitled to ask hard questions. Particularly when the public struggles to see commensurate, transparent, and durable physical development.
If money is coming in, and obligations are not being met, then something is wrong with priorities—or with integrity.
Kogi’s institutional crisis cannot be discussed honestly without addressing the lingering shadow of the immediate past administration. Former Governor Yahaya Bello’s ongoing corruption trial has produced steady court reportage about financial flows and government accounts being tendered, and witnesses testifying around shameful transactions and records—whatever the ultimate outcome may be. The point here is not to prejudge the court, but to emphasise the reputational and governance cloud hanging over the state’s recent fiscal culture.
If, as many Kogites believe, the previous power structure still maintains significant influence over the state apparatus, then unpaid judicial pensions begin to look less like “administrative delay” and more like what they really are: a symptom of captured governance, where institutions are treated as tools, not as pillars. A judiciary that is owed, weakened, and politically pressured becomes easy to manage. And a managed judiciary is the beginning of a managed society, but many do not see the very apparent danger in this.
The Kogi State government must put in place an immediate settlement plan for all outstanding pensions, gratuities, and verified arrears owed to retired judicial officers, published and time-bound. This plan or funding mechanism must be ring-fenced and insulated from Executive discretion.
The NJC, on its part, should publish the compliance status of every state, name defaulters, and escalate sanctions or binding intergovernmental action where lawful.
Civil Society and the Nigerian Bar Association (or whatever is left uncaptured by the state government) must mount pressure through litigation, Freedom of Information requests, and public interest advocacy to make it politically expensive to starve the bench.
A state where retired Judges must “appeal” for entitlements is a state advertising its own decay. If Kogi State cannot honour those who interpreted its laws and protected its constitutional order, then it is not only shameful—it is dangerous. Because today it is retired judges; tomorrow it will be the living system of justice itself.
And once the public finally concludes that the judiciary is not independent, no, once that belief hardens, no number of court reforms, judicial conferences, or ceremonial speeches will restore trust. Trust is rebuilt only when institutions are defended in practice, not praised in theory.
Kogi must stop starving its bench. And the NJC must stop watching.
Deji Ajare, a legal practitioner, writes from Abuja
Read the full article here
