The National Industrial Court, NIC, in Abuja postponed until September 16 the Federal Government’s lawsuit challenging the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
Even though the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, requested to be included as an interested party in the case, the court, presided over by Justice P. I. Hamman, allowed the suit for further review.
Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN, SERAP’s attorney, informed the court that SERAP had just filed a similar complaint to compel the Federal Government to uphold the 2009 agreement with the striking university professors.
“On September 8, 2022, we filed a similar complaint asking the court to compel the Federal Government to honor an agreement it voluntarily entered into with ASUU,” Adegboruwa said, adding that SERAP’s joinder motion was predicated on the need to avoid duplication of outcomes affecting the industrial conflict.
However, Tijjani Gazali (SAN), the counsel for the Federal Government in the complaint, opposed to Adegboruwa’s request to consolidate the claims, arguing that “SERAP’s application was premature because the matter was scheduled to be mentioned on Monday.”
In response to the comments made by attorneys for SERAP and the Federal Government, ASUU’s attorney, Femi Falana (SAN), noted that he was aware of the attorneys’ plans to file court documents on Monday.
In his ruling on the SERAP’s motion for consolidation, Justice Hamman agreed with the Federal Government that the matter was not ripe for consolidation.
He explained that he was just presiding as a vacation judge because the case will be assigned to a different judge for adjudication after the court’s annual break. He ordered the parties to file and exchange court documents, and he postponed the case until September 16, 2022.
Following the court proceedings, Falana told reporters that the Nigerian government routinely adopts “dilatory methods that tend to prolong strikes.”
Falana, along with ASUU president Emmanuel Osodeke and other striking lecturers’ officials, referred to the resident doctors’ dispute with the government from the previous year, which resulted in an industrial court complaint.
We were here last year when the resident doctors went on strike, and it was the same strategy.
Adegboruwa, for his part, explained to journalists that the Federal government’s failure to support public colleges necessitated the filing of SERAP’s lawsuit.
The Federal Government had sued the union to determine the legality or otherwise of the ongoing, protracted strike by ASUU leadership and members, as well as to interpret the provisions of Section 18 LFN 2004, particularly as they apply to the cessation of strike once a trade dispute has been apprehended by the Minister of Labour and Employment and conciliation is ongoing.
In its lawsuit filed on September 8, FG requests, among other things, that the court determine whether ASUU members are entitled to emoluments or “strike pay” during their strike, which began on February 14, 2022, in light of national law as provided in Section 43 of the TDA, the International Labour Principles on the right to strike, and decisions of the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association on the subject.
“Determine if ASUU has the right to strike over disputes such as this by compelling the Federal Government to use its own University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) in the payment of its members’ wages as opposed to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) used by the Federal Government in the nation for the payment of the wages of all its employees in the Federal Government Public Service of Nigeria.”
Notably, ASUU began a four-week strike on February 14 and has continued to extend it as failed negotiations with the administration continue. ASUU extended the strike indefinitely on August 29, accusing the government of insincerity.