FG to consider ASUU splinter group’s application for trade union membership

The Federal Government on Thursday directed a ministerial committee to review within four weeks, the application filed by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) splinter group, Congress of University Academics (CONUA), for registration as a trade union.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, gave the directive when he granted audience to the CONUA delegation led by its National Coordinator, Niyi Sunmonu, in his office in Abuja.

He promised to look into the group’s request for registration as a trade union.

In his address, Sunmonu lamented that constant industrial actions had done more harm to the nation’s university system.

He said the varsity lecturers should have evaluated the effect of strikes on Nigeria’s institutions.

The coordinator urged the minister to reconsider CONUA’s request for registration as a trade union, saying ASUU no longer represents the interests and aspirations of its members.

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Sunmonu said: “From the preliminary report that we have, the strike has done more bad than good to our universities.

“Nigerian Universities should rank comfortably with any other university in any part of the world. So we want to ensure a seamless and uninterrupted academic calendar in the university system.

“CONUA members are independent academics who decided to come together and form a formidable union for its members and the advancement of education in Nigeria.

“We should constructively engage the government because the government cannot see what we see and we will not see what the government sees but when we have our mind made up in a constructive manner we will come to a reasonable agreement to further progress our universities and for the advancement of the nation.”

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