ASUU joins NLC/TUC nationwide strike as FG kicks
By Emma Ogbuehi
A new and worrisome dimension was added to the nationwide strike declared by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has asked its members to join the exercise. The directive by ASUU to its members comes as the Federal Government describes the NLC action as inimical to national interest.
President of ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, gave the directive on Monday evening in a letter sent to all the union zonal coordinators and branch chairpersons of the union.
The letter read, “The Nigeria Labour Congress at a Joint National Executive Council (NEC) of NLC and TUC directed all affiliate Unions to commence withdrawal of services with effect from 12:00 midnight today 13th November 2023.
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“As an affiliate of NLC, all members of our union are hereby directed to join this action of NLC to protect the interest of Nigerian workers and the leadership of the union.
Zonal coordinators and branch chairpersons should immediately mobilise our members to participate in the action. A people united cannot be defeated”.
The NLC and TUC, had on Monday ordered their affiliates to withdraw their services nationwide from midnight on November 14, 2023. TUC President Festus Osifo made the disclosure while addressing journalists in Abuja on Monday.
Osifo said the strike would remain until “government at all levels wake up to their responsibility.”
The strike is also to protest the battering of the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, and some other executives of the congress in Owerri, Imo State, on November 1, as well as the pending labour issues in Imo State.
Ajaero was brutalised on November 1 by persons believed to be thugs and policemen upon arrival in Imo ahead of a state-wide protest.
Ajaero, while recounting his ordeal in the hands of the thugs, said: “God must have taken extra time to create me because of the kind of beating I received.”
There are fears that with ASUU joining the strike, the relative peace that has prevailed in the Universities following the normalization of academic activities after an eight-month industrial action that paralysed the institutions the greater part of last year and earlier this year, would be affected.
Meanwhile, the Presidency has decried the strike, arguing that it in disobedience of a court order. It also said in a statement on Monday signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, that the strike is not in the national interest, but for selfish gain.
