By Deborah Onyofufeke
The National Industrial Court, NIC, Abuja, has struck out a suit the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, filed to for the court to order the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and the Federal Government to call off its seven months long ongoing strike action.

When the matter came up on Tuesday, NANS factional president, Umar Faruk Lawal, notified the court that he filed a motion for discontinuance.

He had explained that his withdrawal was on account of the student body, which had challenged his position and denied that he is the President of NANS.

On this note, Justice Polycarp Hamman, the presiding Judge, ended further proceedings in the matter and struck out the suit.

Lawal had told the court that he filed the suit marked NICN/ABJ/273/2022, for himself and on behalf of NANS.

In the suit, ASUU was cited as 1st Respondent, and the Minister of Education and the Attorney-General of the Federation were listed as 2nd and 3rd Respondents, respectively.

Though the other two Respondents were not represented, however, counsel to ASUU, Marshal Abubakar, informed the court that he was not opposed to Lawal’s application to withdraw the suit.

It will be recalled that two NANS, presidential candidates had claimed victory at an election the students’ body conducted recently.

While Lawal who is of the Department of Library and Information Science of the Bayero University, Kano, insisted that he won the election, the NANs Convention Planning Committee declared Usman Barambu as the President-elect of the association.

ASUU had since gone before the Court of Appeal in Abuja to set aside the NIC judgement that ordered it to call off its over seven-month-old strike action.

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The union, in a 14-ground of appeal, also applied for a stay of execution of the judgement.

The NIC had in the judgement that was delivered on September 21, ordered the striking varsity lecturers to return to the classroom, pending the determination of a suit the Federal Government filed to query the legality of their strike action.

The interim injunction directing ASUU members to resume work followed an application FG filed through its lawyer, Mr James Igwe.

Justice Hamman held that the order was both in the national interest and for the sake of undergraduates in the country that have been at home since February 14.

He held that the strike action was detrimental to public university students that cannot afford to attend private tertiary institutions.

“The balance of convenience tilts in favour of the applicant.

“I hold that this application is meritorious and this application is granted”, Justice Hamman ruled.

However, ASUU, in its appeal, maintained that Justice Hamman “erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice when he decided to hear and determine the Respondents’ motion for an interlocutory injunction when he knew or ought to have known that the substantive suit was not initiated by due process of law”.

It argued that the mandatory steps and procedure stipulated in Part 1 of the Trade Dispute Act, TDA, was not followed by FG.