Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige has advised the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to resume teaching in line with the appeal court verdict and stop wasting money on pursuing legal action.
Gatekeepers News reports that Ngige stated this on Friday after the court of appeal held that ASUU should call of its strike immediately.
“If I were ASUU counsel, I would advise them not to be making money for lawyers; lawyers who want cases to go upstairs — court of appeal and supreme court,” he said,
“The good thing about this one is that by section 243 of the Nigerian constitution, the court of appeal is the terminal court for the judgment.
“I will advise ASUU, for the benefits of the nation and the children, to go to the classroom and go back to that same initial court to grant them either two things — to set up an ADR to look into all the issues that are transmitted there.”
The Minister further accused ASUU of not being sincere with negotiations, adding that the union has politicised the strike.
Ngige also alleged that Emmanuel Osodeke, ASUU president, asked Nigerians not to vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 elections.
“It is ASUU that is not sincere. They feed their members with lies. At a point, they politicised the entire thing,” he said.
“President Osodeke of ASUU on national TV asked them (referring to Nigerians) to vote out the APC government, that they have kept children at home for seven months.
“Why is he dabbling into politics? A union should not go into politics by section 15 of the Trade Union Act.”
Gatekeepers News reports that ASUU has been on strike since February 14 over the federal government’s failure to meet its demands bordering on the funding of universities as well as salaries and allowances of lecturers.
Several meetings between ASUU and the federal government have ended in deadlock. The government dragged the union to the national industrial court to challenge the strike.
On September 21, an industrial court granted the federal government’s application for an interlocutory injunction to restrain ASUU from continuing with the strike pending the determination of the substantive suit.
Not satisfied with the ruling, ASUU approached the court of appeal seeking leave to challenge the lower court’s decision.
The court of appeal on Wednesday asked the parties to consider out-of-court settlement.
Both parties on Thursday, however, agreed to proceed with the hearing after failing to reach a settlement.
Delivering a ruling at the resumed court session on Friday, a three-member panel of the appellate court granted the union “conditional leave” to appeal the industrial court’s decision.
The panel led by Hamman Barka said for ASUU to file its notice of appeal within seven days, it must show evidence that its members have resumed work immediately.
The panel held that failure to adhere to the order will make the appeal incompetent before the court of appeal.
At the court session, the appellate court said ASUU should obey the order of an industrial court which directed the suspension of the strike before seeking to appeal the judgment.
