Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has faulted the Federal Government’s threat to deregister the organization over an alleged violation on the filing of the union’s financial reports of its audited accounts.
He called the anticipated revocation of ASUU’s Certificate of Registration (CoR) and invocation of the Trade Union Act by the Registrar of Trade Unions a ruse by Labour and Employment Minister to blackmail the varsity union.
According to him, when the reports were delivered to the Labour Ministry, the Registrar refused to accept them. In a short statement, Prof Osodeke said: “It is part of Ngige’s fight and attempt to blackmail the union. We submitted our audited account up to 2021 to the Registrar of Trade Union in the Labour Minister’s Office but they refused to accept the submission without any reason.
“We even paid the fees for submission they refused to accept. The same documents were sent through speed post, they returned the package without even checking the content.
“Our legal counsel Falana and Falana Chambers also went there with the documents. They refused to collect. They did all these just to try to blackmail the union.
“We challenge the Labour minister to publish when all the Labour unions in Nigeria submitted their last audited account.
“The Buhari government needs to investigate Ngige to know why he is using the ASUU strike to undermine the government and the interest of Nigerian students.”
