Court of Appeal Under Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem Fails to Account for ₦9.6 Billion in Staff Salaries, Offers Investigators No Explanation

Secrets Reporters

The Court of Appeal, Nigeria’s second-highest judicial body, has been unable to account for ₦9,622,942,082.25 in personnel costs during the 2021 and 2022 financial years, according to a Federal Government review of the Court’s finances obtained by SecretsReporters.

The finding covers the tenure of Justice Monica Bolna’an Dongban-Mensem, who served as President of the Court of Appeal throughout the period under review before her retirement in 2023.

The government released ₦8,053,437,214.66 for non-judicial court workers’ salaries across the two years representing 106 percent and 101 percent of the appropriated budget in each year respectively  and a further ₦1,569,504,867.59 for judicial officers’ salaries and emoluments. Combined, that amounts to ₦9.62 billion the Court received specifically to pay its staff.

When investigators sought to verify how the money was spent, they found the manual payroll submitted for review did not even specify non-judicial workers’ salary step, the basic data point needed to confirm whether someone was paid correctly for their grade. The Court could not provide total payroll records for either year. Records of staff on study leave, staff occupying government quarters, staff who exited service, staff recruited, and records of ad-hoc staff were all missing. A breakdown of how the ₦1.57 billion allocated to judicial officers was actually spent was never provided either.

Investigators held two meetings with the Court and sent a reminder letter to the Chief Registrar after both went unanswered on substance. In the end, the review team could not verify the accuracy, validity, or completeness of ₦9.62 billion in salary payments not because the money was proven stolen, but because the Court could not, or would not, show the paperwork that would let anyone check.

A second finding compounds the concern: 365 junior staff at salary grade level 06 and below were recruited across 2021 and 2022  178 in 2021, 187 in 2022  with no management resolution authorising the recruitment and no delegation of power from the Federal Judicial Service Commission to the Chief Registrar, as Paragraph 15(b) of the FJSC Regulations 2010 requires for hires at this level. No manpower plan, no budgetary allocation record, no Federal Character Commission approval, no Junior Staff Committee minutes, and no evidence that an FJSC representative attended the recruitment process were produced. Three hundred and sixty-five people joined the Court’s payroll across two years with none of the paperwork that is supposed to establish why they were hired, whether the process was fair, or whether Nigeria’s Federal Character principle was observed.

On both findings, the Court’s management response is recorded in two words: “No response.” The Auditor-General’s evaluation on both is identical: since management failed to respond at all, the findings remain valid until the recommendations are implemented.

The specific individual who served as Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal during the 2021–2022 period the officer these findings and recommendations are formally addressed to could not be independently confirmed from public records reviewed for this report. Justice Dongban-Mensem led the Court through this period, and the institution’s current leadership now bears responsibility for the ₦9.62 billion accounting gap and the recruitment process failure this review uncovered, regardless of whichever registrar’s desk it originally crossed.

Paragraph 3106 of the Financial Regulations 2009, governing irregular payment, and Paragraph 3129, governing gross misconduct, are the sanctions the Auditor-General has invoked for the unaccounted personnel cost finding; Paragraph 3129 alone is invoked for the recruitment failure. Both remain open findings, unanswered, in the Court of Appeal’s own books.