Yesterday in Abuja, the minister said that the government was waiting for the NIC to decide whether or not to pay the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) members their back pay.
Femi Falana (SAN), an activist lawyer and ASUU's counsel, encouraged President Muhammadu Buhari to pay the eight weeks' wages directly to the academics who went on strike between February and October.
"The matter is in court," Ngige stated. We are awaiting a callback from the court. Whether they can be paid that (the eight months of withheld salary arrears) or not is one of the substantive questions that the court was given the opportunity to rule on.
No one from the court has contacted us. The question of out-of-court settlement or alternative dispute resolution will come up when the court calls us and we appear.
Since the subject was sent to the NIC, the minister claims he has not met with the ASUU leadership.
Only the court may order that negotiations with the ASUU leadership resume, according to Dr. Ngige.
He also said that members of ASUU have sued his government over the registration of the Nigeria Association of Medical and Dental Academics and the Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA) (NAMDA).
The minister also said that the leaders of ASUU had taken him and the trade union registrar to the NIC to talk about plans to take away the union's registration certificate because it hasn't turned in its audited accounts since 2013.
He further stated that the NIC was being asked to decide these two matters.
"I have not met with the union leadership," the minister declared. The court will give me the order to return and pick up the union negotiations. I informed the Speaker of the House of Representatives that I am unable to travel there to conduct any negotiations on behalf of the National Assembly for this reason.
"It will be a disregard for the court's decision. We are waiting till our people have submitted all of the complaints. The registration of CONUA and NAMDA are the two cases currently in court. To court they took me. Additionally, we have submitted a defence and counterclaim.
The non-rendition of ASUU's audited account between 2013 to the present is the court's second issue. They received a letter from the Registrar of Trade Unions in 2020, although they didn't submit any accounts that year.
"I requested in a letter to them (ASUU) in 2022 that they provide justification for why a violation of Section 15 of the Trade Union Act should not result in the removal or cancellation of their certificate of registration as a trade union.
"ASUU rushed to court and pleaded with the court to enjoin the Registrar of Trade Unions and Minister of Labour and Employment from ever doing that (removing their certificate of registration)."
ASUU terminated its eight-month strike on October 14. Last week Thursday, the government allegedly paid university teachers half their wage for the month of October, a development that sparked new concerns about the strike's suspension.
However, the government refuted the assertion that it only paid half salaries in a statement from Mr. Olajide Oshundun, Head of Press and Public Relations at the Ministry of Labour and Productivity.
He claimed that the lecturers received pro-rata pay.
The statement reads: "Following the Court of Appeal's decision upholding the National Industrial Court of Nigeria's (NICN) judgement requesting that ASUU return to work, the union leadership wrote to the minister telling him that the strike has been suspended.
Similar correspondence from the Federal Ministry of Education and confirmation that they are back to work from our labour inspectors across several states were sent to him.
The minister then demanded that their salaries be reinstated in a letter to the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning.
"They received pay based on the number of days they worked in October, starting on the day when their strike was put on hold. Because you can't pay someone for labour that isn't done, pro-rata was used. Everyone's options are limited.
Ngige claimed that the lecturers received pay after 15 days of service.
The ASUU leadership will meet this week to discuss their course of action, it was learned last night.
Falana responded to the situation by claiming that the federal government's position on the issue was "factually flawed and legally misleading."
He made the case that since Buhari has overruled the no-work, no-pay principle applied to the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) members, it only makes sense to apply it to ASUU.
Falana pleaded with the President to defy the Labor Minister's recommendation and give ASUU members their full salaries.
The senior attorney declared: "The federal government's argument is legally deceptive and factually flawed." Public institutions have altered their calendars to prevent the cancellation of the 2021–2022 academic session since the industrial action was suspended. As a result, students are already attending lectures or taking exams that were postponed due to the ASUU strike.
Because students who were not taught during the ASUU strike are today attending lectures and taking exams, the adage "no work, no pay" is completely irrelevant in light of the facts and conditions of the strike.
"In addition, it is well known that the NARD members were on strike last year for a period of two months. The national industrial court ordered the NARD to end the strike after the federal government dragged the protesting doctors there.
President Muhammadu Buhari immediately abandoned the "no work, no pay" tenet and ordered the payment of salaries for the two months that the strike lasted.
"On that occasion, the President disregarded Dr. Ngige's advice in order to preserve workplace unity in the healthcare industry.
"In a similar spirit, and in accordance with the national industrial court's and the court of appeals's orders, the ASUU recently ended its eight-month strike." We are obliged to urge President Buhari to disregard Dr. Ngige's counsel and order public universities to pay each lecturer's full salary from February to October 2022.
