The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has declared that the Federal government may have no other choice than to drag the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to the industrial court if efforts to resolve the ongoing strike fails.
The minister who made the disclosure during a television interview on Thursday, April 21, said ASUU is in the habit of intimidating and threatening officials in the ministry of digital communications and economy and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) over the deployment of the proposed University Transparency Account System (UTAS) and must be stopped.
Ngige cited a case where the professorship of Isa Ali Pantami was declared fake and illegal by ASUU because he wouldn't give in to their demands on the use of UTAS. He further stated that the union also bullied the director of NITDA, by threatening to withdraw the certificate conferred on him by Ahmadu Bello University.
He explained that the Nimi Briggs-led renegotiation committee were given six weeks to submit its report, which ends on Friday, and both parties involved would be invited for a meeting by next week, if reconciliation fails, the government would consider taking the union to the industrial court.
