The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, says the lingering
strike action of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), might
soon come to an end as the leadership of the union and the Federal
government have reached a partial agreement. Recall that the academic
union began their strike action on November 5th to demand better funding
for the Education sector. Speaking after a reconciliation meeting with
the union yesterday December 10th, the Minister told newsmen that the
strike would soon be called off as efforts are being made to meet the
demands of the union.“We have finished our deliberation. I am happy to
report that we touched some areas of understanding in implementation
from the memorandum of action which we agreed to in 2017. Some of these
areas we have substantial compliance and some other areas have not been
fully dealt with. Like the issue of shortfall in salaries of some
federal universities’ workers and lecturers, ASUU has given a list to
the accountant-general’s office and we have agreed that by Wednesday
that list should be cross-checked by the presidential initiative on
continuous auditing. So, the accountant-general’s office is to get back
to us by Wednesday.“We also have the issue of earned allowances,
revitalisation, these are issues of 2009 agreement and partial
implementation and we have agreed on the modus operandi to look into the
fund situation, this is due to low revenue on the part of government.We
have agreed on what we are going to do to make sure that the
outstanding amount is handled in a way that all parties will be properly
accommodated. We also discussed the issue of state universities and
agreed also that even if education is on the concurrent list, the
universities should be properly funded and staffed so that we do not
produce half-baked students from those universities. In realisation of
this, the ministry of education will set up a committee, that would
engage the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, and the minister of education has
taken steps in that direction to formalise the interaction. Thus
discussion are fruitful and we do hope that in the next adjourned date
we would have had the requisite result on the few agreements reached
today.” he saidAlso speaking to newsmen, the National president of ASUU,
Abiodun Ogunyemi, said“Our own understanding is that we heard promises
made on the part of government, we shall await the report on all the
issues, which they have made the promises. Only after that, we can get
back to our members to take a decision.Strike: We have reached partial agreement with ASUU- Chris Ngige
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, says the lingering
strike action of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), might
soon come to an end as the leadership of the union and the Federal
government have reached a partial agreement. Recall that the academic
union began their strike action on November 5th to demand better funding
for the Education sector. Speaking after a reconciliation meeting with
the union yesterday December 10th, the Minister told newsmen that the
strike would soon be called off as efforts are being made to meet the
demands of the union.“We have finished our deliberation. I am happy to
report that we touched some areas of understanding in implementation
from the memorandum of action which we agreed to in 2017. Some of these
areas we have substantial compliance and some other areas have not been
fully dealt with. Like the issue of shortfall in salaries of some
federal universities’ workers and lecturers, ASUU has given a list to
the accountant-general’s office and we have agreed that by Wednesday
that list should be cross-checked by the presidential initiative on
continuous auditing. So, the accountant-general’s office is to get back
to us by Wednesday.“We also have the issue of earned allowances,
revitalisation, these are issues of 2009 agreement and partial
implementation and we have agreed on the modus operandi to look into the
fund situation, this is due to low revenue on the part of government.We
have agreed on what we are going to do to make sure that the
outstanding amount is handled in a way that all parties will be properly
accommodated. We also discussed the issue of state universities and
agreed also that even if education is on the concurrent list, the
universities should be properly funded and staffed so that we do not
produce half-baked students from those universities. In realisation of
this, the ministry of education will set up a committee, that would
engage the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, and the minister of education has
taken steps in that direction to formalise the interaction. Thus
discussion are fruitful and we do hope that in the next adjourned date
we would have had the requisite result on the few agreements reached
today.” he saidAlso speaking to newsmen, the National president of ASUU,
Abiodun Ogunyemi, said“Our own understanding is that we heard promises
made on the part of government, we shall await the report on all the
issues, which they have made the promises. Only after that, we can get
back to our members to take a decision.
