ASUU Strike: It’s Only Voluntary For My Ministry To Intervene, Says Ngige

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, says his ministry’s conciliatory role in resolving the issues that led to the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is voluntary.

He said the government was considering an upgrade of the Industrial Arbitration Panel to a commission where irreconcilable issues could be transferred to.

He was fielding questions from reporters in Abuja yesterday at the joint workshop on International Labour Standards and Dispute Resolutions, organised by the Industrial Arbitration Panel (IAP) in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

He noted that the matter had been transferred tothe Ministry Education.

“If a party wants us to transmit a matter back to them to have a second look, you assist them. That is what you call voluntary conciliation. It is voluntary because if I apprehend and bring all the parties to the negotiation table and a party requests that I should take the matter to NICN, (National Industrial Court of Nigeria) I will do so,” he said.