The Court of Appeal has ordered members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to end their eight-month-old strike and resume work immediately.
Ruling on an application by ASUU filed through its counsel, Femi Falana (SAN), on Friday, the three-member panel of Justices of the appellate court also granted the union conditional leave to appeal the ruling of the National Industrial Court delivered on September 21, 2022 while ordering the university lecturers to end strike and go back to class.
The presiding Justice, Justice Hamma Barka, granted leave on the conditions that ASUU obeys the order of the interlocutory injunction by the lower court immediately.
Justice Abraham Georgewill, who was part of the panel, also ordered that the leave granted can only stand if ASUU obeys the orders of interlocutory injunction of the National Industrial Court, stating that in a situation where the orders of the lower court is not obeyed, the court will withdraw the leave granted ASUU to appeal the interlocutory injunction orders by the Industrial Court.
The court thereafter gave ASUU seven days within which to file its appeal and immediately obey the orders of the lower court.
ASUU had approached the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, asking it to set aside the ruling of the National Industrial Court that ordered it to call off its strike.
The union, in a 14-ground of appeal, equally applied for a stay of execution of the judgment. One of the grounds of the appeal is that “the learned trial judge erred in law and thereby occasioned a miscarriage of justice when he decided to hear and determine the respondents’ motion for interlocutory injunction.”
The appeal also faulted the judge’s order that the strike was an infringement on the right of students and added that “the learned trial judge erred in law when he held that the roll-over strike is an infringement of the right of the Nigerian students and the government who is the owner of the universities.”
It also said “that the trial judge erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice when he granted the order of interlocutory injunction in favour of the respondents without exercising his discretion judicially and judiciously and holding that ‘there is no doubt that the balance of convenience tilts in favour of the claimants/applicants.’”
However, the leadership of ASUU said it would review the judgment of the Appeal Court ordering lecturers’ immediate return to work. President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, told Saturday Tribune that the judgment would be reviewed at a meeting of the union before deciding on the next line of action.
ASUU was represented by its counsel, Mr Femi Falana and he is expected to brief the lecturers on the development on the basis of which the next line of action would be taken by the union. Osodeke, who noted that he was still waiting to be officially informed, said he could not take a unilateral decision on what happens next.
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.”
The Federal Government had dragged ASUU before the National Industrial Court on September 11, 2022 when all efforts to prevail on the union to call off its proved abortive.
The court, on September 24, ordered the lecturers to return to work while negotiation with the Federal Government continues but dissatisfied with the ruling, the union proceeded to the appellate court to appeal the ruling. Meanwhile, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has called on ASUU to obey the Appeal Court ruling and call off the strike in the interest of students.
NANS Senate President, Ismail Adeshina, while reacting to the Appeal Court ruling affirming the directive to the lecturers to suspend the lingering strike, said there was no need for ASUU to continue to fight “a lost battle.”
He commended the Appeal Court for ordering the lecturers back to the classroom in the interest of parents and students.
ASUU has been on strike since February 14 over some key demands, including renegotiation of the FGN/ASUU 2009 agreement; release of revitalisation funds for universities; deployment of the University Transparency Accountability System (UTAS) as payment platform for universities, release of earned allowances and the release of the white paper of the visitation panels to universities.
Students have held protests across the country while various stakeholders, including the visitor to the federal universities, President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly, have intervened in the impasse to no avail.
While urging the Federal Government to ensure that issues raised by the lecturers are addressed, NANS observed that negotiation on contentious issues could continue even after resumption of academic activities.
He noted that students have suffered and lost almost entire academic session to the protracted strike.