By Tony Edike
ENUGU – THE National Industrial Court sitting in Enugu Wednesday asked members of the Joint Consultative Forum of Kano State-owned Tertiary Institutions who have been on strike since July last year to consider calling off the industrial action since the matter was already being handled by the court.

The Forum had dragged the Kano state government to the industrial court claiming that the government breached the agreement it had earlier entered into with the lecturers.

Presiding Judge of the court, Mrs. M.S. Kolawole, after listening to both counsels of the two parties, however, adjourned the case till May 25 for further hearing , although with an appeal to the striking lecturers to suspend the industrial action pending the final determination of the case.

Making his submission, Counsel to the Kano state government, Mukhtar Sani demanded that since the strike has been on for about ten  months, and the students having lost the period in their academic career, there was urgent need for the strike to be called off, pending the determination of the court.

He added that the students ought to be having examinations few days from now but regretted that the strike was affecting them adversely.

Sani had earlier filed a motion asking the court to compel the claimants to suspend their on-going strike.

“We demanded before the court that they should call off the strike having brought the matter to court; let the court decide the case because at the end of the day, the court will decide on the matter,” he said.

Sani also said: “They cannot come to court and at the same time embark on strike. They should call off the strike, and that’s why we are in court today (Wednesday). You can’t eat your cake and still have it.”

But counsel to the claimants, Yahaya Suleiman Shakirullah from A.A. Malami (SAN) and Co Chambers, Kano, said the issue at stake did not call for filing of any motion, stressing that the issue before the court was the agreement entered into by both parties in the case, which he said the Kano state government  breached.

“In law, it is clear that once there is an agreement, and it is put into writing, both parties are expected to respect and adhere to the content of the agreement. The government defaulted on their own part, and that was the contention before the court today,” Yahaya told reporters shortly after the court session.

On the motion filed by the counsel to the defendant, Yahaya said up till the time of coming to court, such motion was yet to be served his clients, saying that the issue at stake was not about motion but the fact that the parties should respect the content of the agreement which they reached .

He said even if the issue of motion should arise, it must be given a date during which the court would hear the motion, noting that “if you bring a motion without allowing a date to be fixed for it to be heard, the court will not listen to such motion because no date has been fixed; and that was what happened in the court today.”

He added that “the business of the court today is the agreement which has to be respected but which the government breached when they stopped paying the salary which they had earlier agreed to pay.”

He said the claimants would file application for summary judgment because they defendants failed to make their defence.

Chairman of Joint Consultative Forum of Kano State-owned Tertiary Institutions, Comrade Yusuff Alhassan said the reasons why members of the Forum went to court was government defaulting on the agreement entered into by both parties, implementation of the federal government new salary structure, high taxation in the state and poor infrastructure in the government-owned
tertiary schools in the state.

“We are being taxed higher than any other person even in the whole of Nigeria, not only in Kano state. Then there is the issue of lack of infrastructure . We don’t have enough structures so our students have their lectures under trees,” he told Daily Trust.

He said he would go back to Kano and hold a congress with the members so as to know whether to call off the strike or not.