Strike: ASUU should defy ruling, declare national protest now—WYSN
Secretary of WYSN, Damilola
Owot, in a statement on
Thursday, said: “We condemn in totality the ruling of
Justice Hamman, a vacation judge, who ordered ASUU to resume work, even
when the purported case hasn’t passed through the Industrial Arbitration Panel,
IAP, before landing at the National Industrial Court.
“We also hold the court ruling lacks every moral ground to compel the
striking union to resume work, when there is no concrete plan to resolve all of
the contradictions that led to the strike. As a way forward, ASUU needs to
outrightly reject and defy the court ruling and take the struggle beyond the
mere sit-at-home strike and engage in nationwide protests and stoppages. We
also call on the National Labour Congress to declare a 3-day mass strike, not
only in solidarity with the striking union, but also to demand the scrapping of
the section 47 of the NIC that gives power to the court to stop unions from
embarking on their civil-legal way of negotiating and demanding for their
rights.
“We can recall that the strike action commenced on February 14, 2022,
where the members of ASUU were demanding for the adoption of UTAS, a raise in
poverty-stricken wages and improved funding to education. Instead of acceding
to the demands and making provisions for improved funding, the Buhari/APC-led
federal government imposed the extant no-work-no-pay rule to compel the union
back to work.
“As if the seizing of 8-months salaries of the union is not enough,
the same FG dragged ASUU to court just to enforce an undemocratic ruling on the
mass of the people. If this despotic act is not curtailed, the regime will grow
wings and continue to trample on the rights of the common people.
“Millions of Nigerian youths have been locked out of school for more
than 215 days and the educational system of the country has been left in
tatters. The children of the poor and working people who cannot afford private
universities have been denied access to education while the children of the
ruling elites are busy graduating from overseas universities. Even few days
ago, the daughter of the president graduated from a United Kingdom university,
while the educational system of the country is left to collapse.
“It is now that the government needs to attend to all of the demands
of ASUU and completely revamp the educational sector. The fact that the
children of the ruling elites attend universities outside the country testifies
to the poor state of our education and the need to urgently reshape it. “While we
salute the doggedness of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, who have
organized themselves to take over major roads and barricade important hotspots,
we call on the members of ASUU to swing into action and corroborate the effort
by also taking their demands to the streets. As we often say, a mere
sit-at-home strike can only scratch the surface of the government. An outright
all-out protest will compel the government to immediately meet the demands of
the unions.
“Similarly, we call on the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress
to actually declare and properly organise a 3-day strike and mass protest to
compel the government to accede to the demands of ASUU. We also call on the NLC
to demand the scrapping of the Sections 47 of the Trade Dispute Act (TDA), which
gives the court the power to direct that no worker should continue to embark on
strike pending when the applications are heard and determined in the NIC. We
hold that if this section is allowed to stand, the FG and even the State
governments will start to utilize it to further repress, suppress and oppress
the mass of the working people.
“This fight is a fight of/for everyone. We hereby call on the rank
and file of the Nigerian populace to start to extend their solidarity both
online and offline. We cannot allow our fathers, mothers, uncles and aunties to
enter classes or mark scripts on an empty stomach.
“We support adequate and proper funding of public education, slash of
remunerations of political office holders to fund education, compulsory
attendance of public universities by the sons and daughters of political office
holders, payment of living wages to academic workers and an end to educational
and social racketeering. We need to heavily tax the wealth of fat-cats and
nationalise the natural resources of the country in order to properly fund an
educational reform.
“It is obvious that the current method of governance in Nigeria
cannot resolve any of our fundamental issues. Regardless of who emerges
victorious in the 2023 elections, we can be sure that there will be no
substantial change in the economy and method of governance.
“This is why we at WYSN are campaigning not only for standard living
conditions of the workers and youths but also ultimately for system change.
Only through the struggle to enthrone a socialist system will we start to free
ourselves from the bondage of imperialism and start to utilize our collective
respect for our collective benefits.”
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