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ASUU is acting against the nation’s interest and its constitution

In many of Nigeria’s public universities, there are trade unions in operation, including the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). It is made up of voluntarily registered members who have received offers of employment from universities that designate them as “academic staff.” The Trade Union Act of 2005 states that membership in trade unions is voluntary in Nigeria and that no staff member shall be penalized for declining to join or leaving a trade union.

Students, faculty members, and support staff make up public universities (who are the reason for the employment of university staff, and who, being the primary customers of the universities, should remain the focus of the activities of the staff). No single trade union in the public universities should behave in a way that implies or creates the impression that they are the “university system’s” representatives or the guardians of those universities’ “interests.”

The Trade Union Act of Nigeria (2005) unquestionably gives a precise definition of “Trade Union”:

A trade union is defined as “any combination of workers or employers, whether temporary or permanent, whose purpose is to regulate the terms and conditions of employment of workers, whether the combination in question would or would not, apart from this Act (i.e., if this Act had not been enacted), be an unlawful combination by reason of any of its purposes being in restraint of trade, and whether its purposes do or do not include the following:

A trade union in Nigeria is registered to protect the “terms and conditions of employment” of its members, which would be rendered ineffective without the registration (with the Registrar of Trade Unions) if it weren’t for plain English and rational interpretation. The Trade Union Act’s Section 2 actually supports this claim:

Division 2:

(1) A trade union must be registered under this Act in order to carry out any actions that further the goals for which it was formed.

Nothing in this article, however, prevents a trade union from taking any actions that may be required to register the union, including collecting subscription fees or dues.

(2) A trade union that was registered under this Act may no longer continue to carry out any acts that advance its objectives.

With the caveat that nothing in this paragraph prevents a trade union from taking any actions that may be required for the union’s dissolution.

(3) When a trade union engages in any activity that is forbidden by this section’s subsections (1) or (2), the following happens:

(a) The union and each of its representatives; and

(b) Any member who participated actively in the performance of the act while not acting in their official capacity is in violation of this Act.

Considering all of the aforementioned provisions of section 2 of the Trade Union Act, whether or not ASUU exhibits in the public its certificate of enduring registration, we may assume that ASUU is a trade union, whose activities are governed by the Trade Union Act. If not, it would be inconceivable that the Federal Government of Nigeria would permit ASUU to operate.

Having established that ASUU is a recognized trade union with the purpose of “regulating the terms and conditions of employment” for its members, let’s look at what that word means in legal terms:

According to Carol M. Kopp (2021), Thomas J. Catalano, and Katrina Munichiello’s fact-checking and evaluation of her Investopedia article, “Terms of employment relate to the obligations and rewards connected with a job as agreed upon by an employer and employee at the time of hiring. These terms, which are also known as the “conditions of employment,” often contain the beginning pay, the duties of the position, the workday’s schedule, the acceptable attire, and any time off. Benefits including retirement plans, life insurance, and health insurance may also be included. (I added emphasis.)

The definition of “terms of employment” given above does not conflict with any employment laws that I am aware of, therefore it would be interesting if ASUU could provide one.

Each member of ASUU received an appointment letter outlining the terms and conditions of employment, and before starting work at their institutions, each member supplied a formal letter of acceptance. ASUU would be acting ethically as a trade union by filing a lawsuit to defend those terms and conditions if their employer violated them. I must emphasize that there was no mention of how an employee’s salary will be paid in the appointment letters sent to ASUU members at the time of employment. It is common knowledge that an employee cannot demand that the employer use a certain method of payment.

Additionally, it is not specified in any of the appointment letters sent to ASUU members that any of them would participate in or be advised about the financing of their colleges. Is it not odd that ASUU would take seriously any alleged “agreements” it has made with the federal government regarding university funding when ASUU lacks the legal authority to act as the federal universities’ representative in negotiations, even though many of the employees working for the federal universities are not ASUU members?

In actuality, a large portion of federal university employees does not belong to any kind of union! How were these employees portrayed when those “agreements” were faked and signed? Who conducted the talks and executed the contract on behalf of this group of university workers? How enforceable are these “agreements” then? Without a doubt, ASUU lacks the authority to represent Nigeria’s public institutions in negotiations (federal or state). Members of ASUU should provide the supporting documentation if they believe differently.

As a labor union, ASUU was not recognized as the governing body, chief administrator, or chief negotiator with the owner of federal universities for the finance of such institutions in Nigeria. Members of ASUU may provide contradictory information and also point to clauses in the Trade Union Act of Nigeria that give trade unions the authority to bargain with their employers over the funding or financing of the businesses, industries, or organizations they work for.

Can you picture Dangote Cement Company employees, for example, bargaining with the management about how much money the company needs to set aside annually to fund the business, then declaring a strike, closing the business for a few months, and saying they are doing this to “save the company’s operating system”? To determine if its activities enhance the socioeconomic and cultural interests of Nigeria, ASUU must reexamine its constitution in conjunction with the Trade Union Act.

ASUU’s mission statement lists “protection and enhancement of the socio-economic and cultural interests of the country” as one of its goals. Given this, I ask the following queries:

How can ASUU enhance and safeguard the socioeconomic and cultural interests of the country by preventing Nigerian students from using their libraries, workshops, studios, labs, and classrooms for a little over one full academic session (and counting)?

The Nigerian economy is currently in a terrible state, with a budget deficit of more than N3 trillion in the current fiscal year (thanks in no small part to the naira-eating fuel subsidy, for which more than N4 trillion has been budgeted), decreased foreign exchange earnings, and declining real incomes for Nigerians in both the public and private sectors. However, the following compensation increases have been made available to ASUU: A professor at the bar (CONUASS 7/10), whose current monthly gross income is over N550 000, would earn above N550 000 x 1.35 = N742,500 as monthly gross compensation as a result of a 35% salary rise for the professorial cadre and a 23.5% salary increase for other ranks. ASUU labels this “peanuts” and keeps the institutions closed indefinitely without expressing regret or concern for its students, for whom they assert that they are “fighting.”

How can this ASUU action safeguard and promote the socioeconomic and cultural interests of the country when students, parents, landlords, and other companies that depend on university operations for existence are in pain and these firms are laying off employees at the same time? Let’s also take into account the fact that the Federal Government, despite providing ASUU with these wage hikes, has not yet mentioned anything about her other federal officials, whose children ASUU has compelled to remain out of colleges with dire financial repercussions on them. ASUU’s regard for its proclaimed Object (viii) is nonexistent.

“You must pay us for all the months we have been on strike,” ASUU demands of the federal government. The Federal Government responds by directing ASUU to section 43(1)(a) of the Trade Dispute Act (TDA), which reads as follows: “Where any worker participates in a strike, he shall not be entitled to any wage or other remunerations for the period of the strike, and any such period shall not count for the purpose of reckoning the period of continuous employment, and all rights dependent on the continuity of employment shall be adversely affected accordingly.”

However, ASUU disrespects, ignores, and mocks this clause and demands that the Federal Government break the law in order to pay them for work that has not been completed, frequently citing its “agreements signed freely (as if ASUU doesn’t, metaphorically, put a gun to the head of the Federal Government with crushing strikes)” by the Federal Government.

Do ASUU members provide grades to students for assignments that aren’t completed? (Perhaps some do for questionable motives.) ASUU is requesting that the federal government provide specific employees money in exchange for services that the taxpayers were not provided with. How should the federal government answer to those of us who diligently pay our taxes, and how would such a lawbreaking enhance and safeguard the socioeconomic and cultural interests of the country?

Among the items covered by the ASUU are “such such purposes as are legitimate and are not inconsistent with the spirit and practice of trade unionism.

(I added emphasis.) The [Object (ix)] Is ASUU’s demand that the Federal Government go against a TDA clause legal? What exactly is the “spirit of unionism”—is it a disregard for the law? (At least in Nigeria) Members of trade unions cannot be possessed by the “spirit of trade unionism” or be inspired to act contrary to the objective of trade unions, as is expressly stated in section 1(1) of the Trade Union Act of Nigeria.

The ASUU has gradually assumed responsibilities that are not outlined in either the Nigerian Trade Union Act or its constitution. Members of ASUU have the freedom to interpret their roles in any way they see fit. As a result of the lack of significant opposition, and as a result of this festival of silence, ASUU has assumed a variety of roles, including those of general superintendents and dictators over the funding of public universities.

The expansion of Nigeria’s public university system has been hampered as a result of the Federal Government allowing ASUU to degenerate into a chimera. Because ASUU blatantly abandoned its goals, which were a condition of its registration with the Registrar of Trade Unions, it contributed to the issue with Nigeria’s public university system.

The rhetoric of ASUU members indicates how militaristic it has grown. The execution of the statutes establishing each of its institutions must now be fully expressed by the Federal Government. Each federal university’s governing council serves as its employer, thus the federal government must step aside and allow them get on with their true job of running the institutions. Federal universities will continue on their destructive path of serving as trade unionism battlegrounds where academic staff strive for national notoriety not on the basis of intellectual prowess but on outspoken leadership of trade unions until this is accomplished.

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177 Comments

  1. At this point, there should be a positive agreement between ASUU and the Federal government on this strike action. Students are the most affected.

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