ASUU To Sue FG Over Registration Of Factional Academic Unions

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has threatened to sue the Federal Government over the registration of two factional unions.

Recall that the Federal Government on Tuesday registered two new tertiary education unions.

The unions are the National Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA) and the Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA).

According to ASUU, it would approach the National Industrial Court (NIC) over the registration of the two factional unions.

The counsel to ASUU, Femi Falana (SAN) in a chat with Channels TV said, “ASUU is going to court. It is going to be the NIC.”

The development was also confirmed by the president of ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke on Thursday morning.

Osodeke noted that the statement of their lawyer, Falana is right.

Falana described the registration of CONUA and NAMDA as illegal, adding that according to the Trade Unions Act, only one union is allowed to operate in every sector.

He further stated, “You can’t have two trade unions in the same sector. Only a union is allowed to be registered for all academics in Nigeria.

“That is the essence of the classification of trade unions because we used to have mushrooms in the First Republic so the government restructured the unions and grouped all academics together and all non-academics together. You can’t have two or three in one field.”.

The counsel to ASUU added that there is a Supreme Court judgment on the proliferation of trade unions – the Erasmus Osawe V Registrar of Trade Unions.

The senior lawyer also said the apex court ruled “that your freedom of association is not totalled; it is also regulated by the Trade Unions Act so that there will be no proliferation of trade unions”