ASUU: Group Warns NLC, TUCN Not To Suspend Proposed Solidarity Protest

As the Nigerian Labour Congress and its ally, the Trade Union Congress deploy strategies to perfect their planned national protest over the lingering Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike, a rights group, the Education Rights Campaign(ERC) has warned both unions not to contemplate suspending the action without achieving the desired aims.

The group particularly warned that NLC was in the habit of calling off protests when the motives for such actions have not been achieved, insisting that it would no longer be tolerated.

ERC in a statement jointly signed by Ogunjinmi Isaac, Deputy National Coordinator and Adaramoye Michael Lenin, the National Mobilization Officer cautioned the labour unions against calling off the protest before the day or without achieving results and called for independent preparations to forestall treachery.

The ERC also charged the unions, students and parents to draw in as many forces as possible and to ensure active mobilization and urged the NLC to direct its state councils to convene state planning meetings within the next few days

The statement sighted  “We of the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) welcome the decision of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to embark on a two-day national protest on 26 and 27 July 2022 to force the government to meet the demands of ASUU and other University unions.

“Although coming very late, it is a step in the right direction. The ERC has been at the forefront of calling on NLC and TUC to embark on a series of mass actions to defend public education from the claws of the capitalist ruling class who are hell-bent on not just ruining it but also taking it out of the reach of children of the working masses.

“The ERC also calls on Nigerian students, students unions, radical students groups, NANS and civil society organizations to answer the call of the NLC by mobilizing to join organized labour on 26 and 27 July 2022 for the protest. To draw in as many forces as possible and to ensure active mobilization, the ERC urges the NLC to direct its state councils to convene state planning meetings within the next few days.

“If the NLC calls off the protest before the set date, as is their usual practice, we ask that students, parents, education workers and workers generally go on to protest independently for the reopening of schools and to make the federal government yield to the demands of the public university unions.

“To achieve this, we ask students, parents and workers across all states to start organizing independent protest committees that can work with the NLC state councils to organize the protest while remaining independent of it.

“While we consider NLC’s decision to embark on a protest as a good step in the right direction, we equally warn against last-minute suspension of the protest without any democratic discussion or any concrete resolution of the crisis,” ERC started.

All these comes, as ASUU has insisted on the continuation of the strike nationwide.

Buhari had on Tuesday directed the Minister of Education Adamu Adamu to do everything possible to end the strike.

Recall that ASUU and other unions within the University system have locked horns with the federal government over issues bothering on implementation of a reviewed emolument structure.

The NLC had also directed its affiliate unions to be on red alert regarding the solidarity strike beginning from Thursday this week.

While the federal government had asked all university workers to key into the Integrated Personnel Payrolls and Information System IPPIS, ASUU insists it can only receive its emoluments through the Universities Transparency Accountability System UTAS.