Court of Appeal to Hears FG's Suit Against ASUU Jan 26

The Court of Appeal, Abuja will on January 26, will decide on a suit filed by the federal government against the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over the union’s ongoing strike, as well as the issue of withheld salaries as a result of the government’s no-work-no-pay policy.

The federal government had in 2022 filed a lawsuit against ASUU before the National Industrial Court over the failure of the union to call off protracted its strike last year.

Despite the fact that the NICN ruled in favour of the government and ordered the striking lecturers back to work, the lecturers, through their lead counsel, Femi Falana, SAN, had filed an appeal with 14 grounds, before the appellate court.

The government had also filed a suit challenging the failure of ASUU to submit its audit report to the government.

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Labour, Olajide Oshundun, who spoke to Sunday PUNCH earlier on the issue of the withheld November 2022 check-off dues, hinted that the case was also before the court.

He said;

“Yes, it is true the audited report was not received from them and that was because they didn’t respond to the ministry’s initial letter, asking them to state the reason they refused to submit the audited report for four years.

The ministry’s letter is explicit on this; they refused to submit their report as and when due and we asked for explanations. The next thing they did was to quickly submit the report instead of replying to us in written form.

And let it be clear that it was when the ministry wrote and threatened that their certificate of registration might be withdrawn that they rushed to submit it.

What they were expected to have done was to respond to the letter first and plead with the ministry for late submission of the documents. Because if the ministry should take it from them just like that, other trade unions may follow suit and just do things at their own will. Meanwhile, there is a law guiding all of these processes.

The ministry didn’t request again the documents but only wrote to get explanations for their failure to do the needful. I can also tell you the matter is already in court, so any further inquiry is sub judice.”

Despite the fact that union called off its strike based on the ruling of the appeal court,  the appellate court will rule on whether the union had the legal grounds for going on strike and also on the issue of the withheld salaries, which was activated against the lecturers by the Federal Government on the grounds of no-work-no-pay rule.

“The court will hear the matter on January 26,” a senior member of the National Executive Council of ASUU told Sunday PUNCH.

Earlier, a former National President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, while addressing newsmen, noted that the possibility of a strike in 2023 should not be ruled out.

January 08, 2023