The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which has been on strike for more than five months, has made a number of demands, and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has encouraged the Federal Government to comply.
Ayuba Wabba, the president of the NLC, made the appeal on Tuesday, July 26, while appearing on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
Wabba outlined the motivations behind the NLC’s statewide two-day demonstration in support of ASUU, which began on Tuesday.
To protest Tuesday’s confrontation between the government and ASUU, the NLC organised workers around the nation.
As anticipated, however, the walkout did not shut down important public institutions.
According to Wabba, the NLC would go on a three-day warning strike if the government ignored the protest and refused to accommodate the workers’ requests.
Rationale For Imminent Strike
He said the ASUU strike affected workers and other Nigerians, the reason the NLC embarked on the two days of protest.
Apart from ASUU, three other unions, namely the Non-academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), are on strike over unmet demands by the government.
All four unions are affiliates of the NLC, Wabba stated.
He explained;
NLC doesn’t have direct members except members of the affiliates. It is not about solidarity. We wear the shoe, it pinches us, and we are responding to the issues. The issue in dispute is quite clear. It should be a matter of concern to every Nigerian.
Our Nigerian universities have been closed down for five months, and the children of the poor, particularly the working class, are at home, while the children of the elites and the rich are graduating daily from foreign universities, and they have the audacity to post those pictures to all of us.
It was Mandela that said that the best way to address the issue of equality in our society and address poverty is to give the children of the poor quality education. That is why we are responding.
Wabba explained that a lot of efforts had been made by the NLC in the past five months, including several letters and pre-warning letters sent to the government over the imperative of meeting the striking workers’ demands.
He also said the NLC had joined the government negotiation team with ASUU, and their meetings failed to produce the expected results.
Wabba opined there had been an unnecessary delay by the government in responding to ASUU demands.
According to him, parents and students were losing hope, and the schools had lost an academic calendar over the strike.
The NLC President also explained that many of the nation’s best lecturers had left because of poor wages.
