Strike: ASUU Appeals Industrial Court’s Judgement Over Its Resumption

The counsel for the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Femi Falana, SAN, has disclosed that his client’s position concerning the judgment of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria which ordered the striking lecturers to call off the eight-month-old. strike.

Naija News gathered that Falana was reported to have said that ASUU filed for the appeal on October 14, 2022, a day after it called off the strike. Falana noted that it was in line with the appellate court’s directive for ASUU to first obey the ruling of the lower court before it could file an appeal at the Appeal Court. He noted that even though the academic union has applied, it is yet to receive any date for the hearing of the suit, as they await an official hearing date from the appellate court. Recall that Naija News had reported earlier that the Industrial Court ordered the striking lecturers back to work after it couldn’t reach an agreement with the federal government to settle out of court. In his response to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige’s comment that ASSU can sue the Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA) over its registration, Falan remarked that “The minister knows that he deliberately committed illegality. He should have gone to court to find out the legality of his proliferation of unions among academic staff in the universities.” Meanwhile, Naija News reported last Friday that the National President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, has told the Federal Government and its agents, including Labour Minister, Chris Ngige, to desist from all its plans to ban the union. According to him, the academic union has its philosophy based on a worthy course for the progress of the country’s educational sector and its positive multiplier effects on every other area of the nation, adding that no matter what the plans are to proscribe the union, it will not work. Naija News reports that the ASUU president declared this while delivering his goodwill message at the special commemorative programme organised by the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago Iwoye chapter of the union in Ogun state to honour the immediate past Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Ganiyu Olatunde. Osodeke noted that it’s rather unfortunate that the Federal Government is always envious of the union’s achievements at setting qualitative and enduring standards in the areas of infrastructural provisions and services, despite the insufficient funding of the education sector. He added that Ngige was a jester over his efforts at proscribing ASUU, during the eight months strike. “I can see why Ngige is interested in banning ASUU because once ASUU is proscribed, all the union’s assets automatically become the federal government’s property, even when the government is bereft of ideas to put in place, qualitative assets in the midst of sufficient funds at its disposal as done in the University of Ibadan, UniPort, the University of Maiduguri among other places. “You will never succeed in banning ASUU because ours is a union that assesses the system and aligns with the worthy course without being biased for the progress of the Nigerian educational society,” the ASUU president said.

This article was originally published on Naija News