Edo State Judiciary on Friday said it generated the sum of N296,526,426 as revenue for the 2019/2020 legal year.
Justice Esther Edigin, Chief Judge of the State who made the disclosure at the opening of the 2020/2021 legal year in Benin City, said the amount was generated from court fees, fines, among others.
Giving the breakdown of the income generated between September 2019 and August 2020, Edigin said the revenue generation machine of the Edo State judiciary naturally slowed down in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic but following gradual relaxation of its effect, the generation capacity has improved.
The Chief Judge gave the monthly inflow to include N40.4 million for the month of September, N32.7 million for October, N20.1 million for November and N35.2 million for December 2019.
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She added that the sum of N28.2 million was generated for the month of January, “N23.6 million for February, N21.5 million for March, N2.9 million for April, N11.6 million for May, N27 million for June, N27.6 million for July, and N25.3 million for the month of August 2020”.
While seeking for full financial autonomy for the judiciary as provided under the 1999 Nigerian constitution, she appealed to governor Godwin Obaseki to increase the budgetary allocation to the judiciary.
Justice Edigin, who noted that the number of high court judges stands at 23, said there is need to increase the number of judges for effective justice delivery owing to the exponential increase in the number of cases brought to the courts as well as the numbers of the retirement of judges.
In his remarks, Pius Oiwoh, Chairman Benin branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) charged government to introduce technology to the judicial arm for efficient service delivery.
