The Federal Government was not notified by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) before it set its members on strike, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said on Wednesday.
The minister said the ongoing strike by the ASUU was therefore a “leave”.
Ngige said the union failed also in its agreement with the National Inter-religious Council headed by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Sa’ad, and the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Rev Samson Ayokunle, by failing to report to the committee before embarking on strike.
The minister made this known in a telephone interview The PUNCH in Abuja.
The union had blamed the federal government for constantly failing to honour some of the lingering demands such as payment of revitalization funds for universities, payment of earned allowances for university lecturers, deployment of the UTAS payment system for University lecturers.
Ngige, however, said, “I am sure you know NIREC which is headed by the sultan and the CAN president. I am sure you also remember that the President mandated his Chief of Staff, the ministry of labour and the ministry of education to find a way to make sure that we resolve the issues with ASUU.
“Now, NIREC met with ASUU twice and they discussed some of these issues. The leadership of ASUU said they would go back and meet with their NEC. We were waiting for them to come back and then we heard they were going on strike.
“ASUU failed to get back to us and proceeded on strike without sending notifications. They just gave themselves a leave. If you want to go on strike, you should at least inform us officially by giving us notification but they refused to.
“You can not just go on strike like that, it is illegal. So, they are just on leave. We will work with them and they will call off the strike.”
