The Court of Appeal in Abuja has ordered members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to end their eight-month-old strike “immediately.”
At the court session Friday, the appellate court held that the Union should obey the order of an industrial court which directed the suspension of the strike before seeking to appeal the judgement.
Delivering a ruling at the resumed court session Friday, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal granted the Union “conditional leave” to appeal the industrial court’s decision.
The panel led by Hamman Barka said for ASUU to file its notice of appeal within seven days, it must show evidence that its members had resumed work without further delay.
The panel also held that failure to adhere to the order would make the appeal incompetent before the appellate court.
ASUU president
In its reaction, ASUU said it would review the judgement of the Appeal Court that ordered the union to end its strike, to determine its next line of action.
Its president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, said the Union “is yet to officially receive the Appeal Court ruling.”
He said the Union would after receiving the judgement, go through the document with its lawyers and decide on its next line of action.
“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,” he said.
The federal government had dragged the union to the National Industrial Court on September 11 and the court, on September 24, ordered the striking lecturers to return to class while negotiations with the federal government continued.
However, the Union headed to the appellate court to appeal the ruling.
Buhari
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed dismay over the continued strike, saying the government expected the staff of the universities to “have a better understanding of issues in the country.”
He said the government had made available over N450 billion in the budget to meet the demands of the lecturers.
He said it was becoming obvious that the government “can no longer fund education alone,” adding that it was imperative to work out a framework to fund the budget.
According to him, the government will no longer sign any agreement that it cannot implement.