“ASUU is going to court. It is going to be the NIC,” ASUU’s lawyer, Femi Falana, told Channels Television on Thursday.
The President of ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, also confirmed the development in a chat with our correspondent on Thursday morning.
“He (Falana) is our lawyer. So, that is correct,” Osodeke said when asked to confirm the development.
The Congress of Nigerian Universities Academics (CONUA) and the National Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA) were both officially recognised by the federal government on Tuesday.
As negotiations between ASUU and the government broke down in the midst of the more than a seven-month strike by academics at public universities, the two factional unions were registered.
The two organisations will coexist with ASUU, according to the Minister of Labor and Employment, Chris Ngige, who also noted that they will be granted the same advantages and rights as other academic unions in the higher education system.
However, Falani, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said the registration of CONUA and NAMDA is illegal. He said according to the Trade Unions Act, only one unit is allowed to operate in every sector.
“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,” he said.
Falana said 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”.
ASUU has been on strike since February 14, 2022, over unpaid allowances, poor welfare, and payment software, among others.