PARIS OLYMPIC GAMES
Unimpressed with the shoddy handling of the three-month old strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has threatened to call out workers nationwide for a three-day warning strike.
The organized labour said if the Federal Government failed to accede to the demands of ASUU within 21 days, it would shut down the country.
The President of the NLC, Ayuba Wabba, said it is regrettable that while the children of the poor are idling away at home, the children of the rich are busy with their studies in private universities.
Persecondnews reports that the warning was given at the end of Central Working Committee meeting held in Abuja.
The NLC has, therefore, served a 21-day ultimatum on the federal government to meet the demands of the university unions.
“If at the end of the national protest and the 21-days 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.
“The strike will be in solidarity with our affiliates in the universities and with Nigerian students whose future and wellbeing are being robbed,” Wabba said.
ASUU and other unions within the university system such as the Non-Academic Staff Union of University and Allied Institutions NASU, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian SSANU, National Association of Academic Technologists, NAAT, among others, have been on strike over issues including revitalization funds and the implementation of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
Wabba, who presided over the meeting, declared: “The ongoing strike by unions in Nigerian universities, the CWC resolved as follows, all affiliates of the NLC are to issue public statements condemning the intermittent strike actions in Nigeria’s universities particularly the current one which has gone on for about two months;
“Within the span of the subsisting 21-days ultimatum given by Congress, the NLC will hold national 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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