Abdullahi A Abdulrauf
Before yesterday 7th of October, 2022 when the Court of Appeal gave its ruling on interlocutory injunction to order ASUU to resume work pending the determination of the matter at the National Industrial Court, there have been series of serious agitation, negotiations and mediations between the two parties which yielded no positive result.
However, the Government has been grossly irresponsible to continue repudiating the obligation of their agreement with ASUU, ASUU too has not been so smart in playing their game. Each of them continues to stand on its stance not ready to compromise.
Wherever two elephants have combat, the grass at the spot of the hostility suffer the aftermath. ASUU claims to be fighting on behalf of the Students, the same students that they have sent back home for close to a year, which has made them to loose a complete academic session, a good evil that can not be remedied.
Before this presence, ASUU should have dragged the FG to Court to force the FG to fulfill the obligation of its promise, but no, ASUU was enjoying the comfort of sitting in meetings with those that are not serious, organising TV interviews and chastising the FG on the Newspaper and other press outlet while the Students, because of whom they are doing this are at home helplessly.
FG in its cunningness wrote a script to weaken ASUU dragged it to Court, as a Plaintiff in the suit, it then asked for the immediate resumption from the the strike, citing the point of law. The Court has no option, but to interpret the law and give rulings in the favour of whom the law supports.
It is funny because FG which should be blamed as now become the winner (at presence). The FG knows that the only thing that ASUU could do is to strike, and the only thing that can make the FG to get rid of ASUU is to order them to resume through the Court of law. If ASUU should dare to be contemptuous, there is a grave consequence for that, FG knows this, it pushed ASUU to the wall, it is now waiting for ASUU to be disobedient to Court’s order so that the rest of the script will be acted upon. With the existence of CONUA and NAMDA, it would be easy for FG to replace ASUU after it proscribed it for disobeying the Court’s order.
Compulsory resumption is not a punishment, it a well deserved measure to admonish ASUU for its laxity. If ASUU had dragged the FG to Court before this year after all the failed negotiations, there won’t be any reason for it to Strike, there won’t be any reason for the Students to be delayed at home and denied their right to education, there won’t be any opportunity for the government to impose no-work-no-pay policy on ASUU members and in the end, the Government will be compelled to fulfill the obligation of its agreement with ASUU while everything is going on smoothly.
Now the laxity of ASUU as a Trade Union body has cost its members Eight consecutive months salary which the FG is not ready to refund. It has caused the Students to loose their precious time for the so called revitalization agitation and finally making ASUU to be forced back to work with neither the achievement of its aim nor the collection of its members salary arrears. Equity aids the vigilant and not the indolent.
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Abdullahi A Abdulrauf is law student at Bayero University Kano. He is a Certified Teacher and a Dynamic Writer. He could be reached on Abdulraufabdullahia@gmail.com and 09034904883