The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has called on members and civil society groups in Lagos State to come out en-masse on Tuesday morning to begin a two-day protest on July 26 and 27 in solidarity with striking lecturers under the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). This is despite an appeal by the Federal Government to NLC to shelve the planned nationwide protest. In a circular signed by its Chairpersons and Secretaries of State Councils, the NLC said the decision was in line with the resolutions of the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the body on June 30. Aviation workers, insurance and financial institution employees, and others have also promised to join the industrial action. Electricity workers, under the aegis of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), say they will join the NLC in its solidarity protest over the lingering Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike.
Joe Ajaero, general secretary, NUEE in a letter dated July 22, directed all its members to participate in the protest over the prolonged closure of tertiary institutions.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had however declared the planned protest illegal while his Labour and Employment counterpart, Chris Ngige, claimed that a report by the Department of State Services had warned against the protest.
ASUU and other trade unions in the education sector have been on strike for more than five months over the alleged failure of the federal government to fulfill its promise made to the unions. The union had accused the government of failing to implement the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Memorandum of Action (MoA) signed by both parties.
The demands of the striking workers include funding of universities, as well as increasing salaries and earned allowances of lecturers.
ASUU has always maintained that the strike was its last resort. It had called on Nigerians to engage the federal government on issues currently threatening the industrial peace in public universities. It had equally noted that the Nigerian government has refused to implement the MoA which led to the suspension of its nine-month prolonged strike in 2020.