Following the industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has threatened to embark on three days nationwide warning strike if the Federal Government (FG) continues to ignore the lecturers’ demands.
This is just as the NLC announced a nationwide protest within the 21-day ultimatum earlier issued to the Federal Government, which is expected to end on May 4, 2022.
The NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, made the disclosure during the 2022 pre-May Day rally in Abuja on Thursday.
Wabba said the 21-day ultimatum given to the Federal Government is to meet not just the demands of ASUU, but of the three universities-based unions: Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) and National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT).
He said: “Within the span of the subsisting 21-day ultimatum given by Congress, the NLC will hold nationwide protests against the current strike action affecting students of Nigeria’s public universities and occasioned by government’s failure to honour agreement reached with trade unions in our universities.
“The protest is to draw the attention of government to the inherent catastrophe in the emerging culture of Social Apartheid in our society especially as marked by prolonged lockout of students from working-class and poor homes from our public universities while the children of the rich continue their academic pursuits uninterrupted.
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“If at the end of the national protest and the 21-day ultimatum, the Federal Government still fails to resolve the industrial crises in Nigeria’s universities, the Congress would be left with no other option than to embark on a 3-day nationwide warning strike action in solidarity with our affiliates in the universities and with Nigerian students whose future and wellbeing are being robbed.”
Meanwhile, Human Rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has challenged the organised labour to resuscitate the Labour Party, which was workers’ party, to take over power from this current crop of leadership.
Speaking at a meeting of the National Political Commission with the State Political Committees on Thursday in Abuja, the legal luminary warned that if nothing was done to change the current political leadership, the country would go through worst time in 2023.
Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), insisted that no political party in the country has the kind of structure the labour movement has, stressing that Nigerians were tired of their leaders.
“Let me tell us here that if we are not careful, what would happen after 2023 will be worse than what is happening now.
“That is why I’m calling on the NLC and other labour unions to stand up and take up the process, you must resuscitate the Labour Party,” he said.
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