The four years struggle of Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA) to be recognised as an academic union in Nigeria paid off Tuesday as the Federal Government presented it with Certificate of Registration.
Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, presented the certificate to CONUA in Abuja, on Tuesday.
The Congress had broken away from the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) since 2018 and has since then sought to be recognised by government.
Ngige also presented a Certificate of Registration to the National Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA).
The development comes amid a strike by ASUU over the demand for increased funding for public universities, a review of lecturers’ salaries and allowances, among other issues.
The strike has lasted for over seven months.
Meetings between the Federal Government and ASUU have not yielded any concrete result that signifies that the strike will end soon.
However, the Federal Government had filed a case against ASUU before the National Industrial Court Abuja over the prolonged strike.
In its ruling, the court ordered the lecturers call of their strike and resume but, instead of obey the court order, ASUU went to file an appeal seeking a stay of execution of the judgment.
Recently, the leadership of the house of representatives met with ASUU and federal government officials over the strike.
President Muhammadu Buhari had, at a recent meeting with pro-chancellors of federal universities, also promised to “make further consultations” over the strike by the lecturers.
However, the President Tuesday disclosed that corruption in the education sector has been undermining the investments of his government.
