Emmanuel Osodeke, the president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has explained that the main reason the union suspended the eight months of industrial action was because of the Industrial Court’s judgement.
Osodeke made this known while on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics chat on Sunday, October 16, 2022 where he said ASUU suspended the eight months strike following a court order and appeals from Nigerians.
“As you have seen from our press release – although there were interventions by the speaker (Gbajabiamila) and others – the major reason we are resuming is because we are obeying the industrial court’s judgement. The issues have not been fully resolved and no agreements signed.
“We are resuming because we are a law-abiding organisation and we don’t want to break the law.
“We are also hoping that the intervention of the speaker as promised by him will resolve this problem within a very short time. So, the issues have not been resolved but we would resume because of that court injunction,” he said.
Read also: Nigerians express mixed feelings on ASUU’s conditional strike suspension
Recall that the appeal court sitting in Abuja had earlier on asked ASUU members to obey the order of the national industrial court and return to the classroom after eight months of strike before it could entertain their appeal.
The appeal court insisted that the lecturers must adhere to the interlocutory order of the national industrial court (NIC), which had on Wednesday, September 21, 2022 ordered the aggrieved public university lecturers to return to the classroom till the court determines the legal action instituted against them by the federal government.
However, the union’s national leader reiterated that Chris Ngige, the minister of labour and employment contributed to prolonging the strike for eight months by refusing to adopt the proper approach.
The university don maintained that negotiation was the best approach to resolving the impasse which the minister failed to comprehensively explore.
“But one of the ministers, the minister of labour, believes that the best way is to force them to class. But because of the interest of the Nigerian people, the students, their parents, and the speaker who is intervening, our members will teach,” he said.
ASUU on Friday, October 14, 2022 announced the conditional suspension of the strike that lingered for eight months. The lecturers had on Monday, February 14, 2022 declared a 30-day warning strike to allow the federal government address their demands.
