ASUU holds crucial meeting today on strike, court judgement

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has scheduled an emergency meeting for today to review the latest judgement by the appeal court on its nearly eight-month strike.

The meeting by the national executive of the Union, it was learnt, would decide whether to suspend the strike or not and the next line of action.

The Appeal Court on Friday ordered the striking lecturers to return to class immediately.

A member of the union was quoted by Daily Post as saying that the National Executive Council of ASUU would be reviewing the implications of the Appeal Court judgement at today’s meeting.

He said, “The Appeal Court ruling will be critically reviewed on Sunday and it is after that that we will know the fate of Nigerian students who have been forced to stay at home for almost eight months due to the Federal Government’s negligence.

“Ngige and the Buhari government failed to understand that even if they force the union to resume work, they cannot force the lecturers to teach the Nigerian students whose future have been jeopardized”.

ASUU has been on strike since February 14, 2022, and despite various meetings between the union and the government on how to resolve the crisis, no agreement had been reached.

Following the impasse, the government had dragged ASUU before the National Industrial Court with the court on September 24 ordering the lecturers to return to work while negotiations continued.

However, the Appeal Court on Friday ruled against ASUU, upholding the decision of the lower court and ordered the immediate suspension of the strike pending the determination of the substantive suit.

In an immediate reaction to the Appeal Court ruling, President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said on Friday that the union would review it and make the next step public when ready.

He said, “We have not received the ruling, when we get it, we will review it with our lawyer and then we can take the next step.”

Meanwhile, following the Court of Appeal’s judgement asking ASUU to call off its strike, the Federal Government has threatened to sue the union if they fail to resume as ruled by the National Industrial Court.

While issuing this threat in an interview on Channel TV, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, revealed that he had directed labour controllers to monitor compliance at all tertiary institutions across the states.

According to him, he has ordered controllers in the 36 states and the zones to reach out to the universities to ascertain that the vice-chancellors have opened the gates because that is one of the imports of the judgment of the Industrial Court.