ASUU Strike: Buhari gives education minister two weeks ultimatum to resolve issues

By AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja

 

President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, to resolve the prolonged industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other university-based unions.

 

He gave the directive Tuesday after receiving briefings from the relevant government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) involved in the ongoing efforts to end the face-off with the university unions.

 

Buhari had summoned them to get more information on why the strike had persisted for too long.

 

 

ASUU had commenced one month warning strike on February 14, and other unions also joined them over the alleged inability of the federal government to meet up with their demands.

 

 

It was gathered that after Tuesday’s briefing, the President ordered the education minister to ensure that the areas of disagreement were sorted out within two weeks and report back to him.

 

Buhari also reportedly directed that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige must be in any of the meetings to resolve the crisis while the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, should be part of the team to interface with the striking unions.

 

Those in attendance at the meeting were the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Dr. Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Ngige, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, the Head of Service of the Federation, Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan, the Chairman of National Salaries Income and Wages Commission, Ekpo Nta and the Director-General Budget Office, Ben Akabueze.

 

Meanwhile, as Nigerians were expecting quick resolution of crisis in education sector, the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) yesterday laid its hammer on the minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, describing him as an unabashed protagonist to the amicable resolution to the crisis that has kept Nigerian university students at home for over six months in the country.

 

ASUU also claimed that the minister of Labour and Employment who is the eye of government was not telling Nigerians the truth about the agreement signed with it.

 

Briefing news men at the ASUU Secretariat in Abuja yesterday, on the state of the crisis and the claims of the minister, the president of ASUU, Emmanuel Asodeke claimed that the crisis could not come to an end as the minister of Labour and Employment was frustrating move for the resolution.

 

He debunked the the insinuation, he said came from the minister that there was no agreement between ASUU and government, and that the union fixed its members salaries.

 

The text of the conference by ASUU President reads in part: “It has become imperative for us in the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to update Nigerians and lovers of education everywhere in the world on the statis of our ongoing nationwide strike action which began on 14 February 2022. The need for doing so could be traced to two sources First, as a union of intellectuals that deals with facts and verifiable claims, there is need to put the records straight on our engagements with the government.

 

“This need becomes very compelling against the backdrop of the statements recently pushed out from the government quarters. Specifically, there have been insinuations by the Minister of Labour and Employment. Dr. Chris Ngige, that there was no agreement between ASUU and the government; that ASUU sat down to fix its own members’ salaries; and that our Union asked representatives of ministries departments and agencies (MDAs) to recuse themselves from the negotiations. Also, it appears that Dr Ngige has deliberately misrepresented the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) convention on the collective bargaining agreement and the roles of a conciliator to serve his propagandist interest in this matter

 

“Following the resumption of the strike action by our Union at the University of Lagos, on the 14th February, 2022, we participated at several meetings at the instance of the Ministry of Labour and Employment chaired by Dr. Chris Ngige as “Conciliator” To our utter dismay, nothing concrete came out of the endless deliberations as the Conciliator kept approbating and reprobating. For instance, he would declare that he fully supported our demand that the renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU be speedily concluded within six weeks while at the same time creating an unrealistic pathway to arriving at a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

 

“Similarly. Dr Ngige kept going back and forth on concluding the integrity test for the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) for replacing the discredited Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information (IPPIS) contrary to the letters and spirit of the Memorandum of Action (MoA) of December 2021. Matters got to a head when our Union leaders were forced to express their frustration at one of the so-called conciliatory meetings. When we expressed our frustration at the manners the engagement processes were going. Dr. went on to lampoon the Ministry of Education; saying he was not our employer. At a point, he directed our Union to go and picket the office of the Minister of Education, who is our employer! Subsequently, he tactfully recused himself.

 

“The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), having observed the snail speed and lack of result, threatened and called on the Federal government to set up a high-powered committee to look into the matter. The NLC’s intervention resulted in the “Tripartite-plus” meeting chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President and Commander in Chief, Prof Ibrahim Gambari on 12th May 2022 Contrary to his claim, the meeting that held at the State House Banquet Hall was not convened by the Minister of Labour and Employment. In fact, Dr. Ngige did everything within his capacity to frustrate the suggestion by the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, and supported by the Co-chair of the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) and President of Christian Association of Nigena, Revd Dr. Samson Ayokunle, that the embargo placed on university workers’ salaries be lifted to pave way for amicable resolution of the crisis

 

“For the avoidance of doubt, at no point did ASUU say the President and Commander-in-Chief was going to sign any agreement between us and the government What we said was that our Draft Agreement was receiving attention by the President. Our claim about a Draft Agreement was predicated on the fact that it was the second document to be produced by a joint Renegotiating Comuni tee of the 2009 FCN/ASUU Agreement comprising representatives of MDAs and the ASUU team. The first draft was coordinated by Emeritus Prof. Munzali Jibril, who took over the Chairmanship of the joint renegotiating commuttee from Dr. Wale Babalakin That draft was submitted in May 2021, but was rejected by government a year later!

 

“The second and current report was arrived at after the govemment’s team was reconstituted in April 2022 under the Chairmanship of Emeritus Professor Ninu Briggs.

 

“The Briggs-led Renegotiating Committee began their work with extensive consultations with heads of relevant units in the MDAs and shared a written submission of their findings with our union. We were reassured then, that the new committee had a clear mandate to review the Munzali-led committee’s report through a collective bugaining process It was that process that produced a Draft Renegotiated Agreement on 16th June 2022.

 

“The government team was expected to present the draft document to its principal as done a year earlier ASUU did not expect the President of the Federal Republic to sign the document because neither the 2009 Agreement under review nor any of the previous ones was signed directly by Head of the Government What we said and we are saying is that the government team was expected to obtain the needed clearance to sign the Draft Agreement which came out of a collective bargaining process that began way back in 2017.

 

“If Dr. Ngage means well as a “conciliator, why will he be putting roadblocks on the path to completing a process that has dragged for more than five years?, the ASUU president said.

 

On collective bargaining, the ASUU president said: “The Ministry of Labour and Employment, as the chief labour ministry of the country, is principally expected to apprehend disputes between employers and employees with a view to settling such disputes. The Ministry shall normally await reports of disputes by either side to the disputes for settlement.

 

“When the Minister apprehends a dispute, he/she must communicate to the parties or their representatives, his or her own proposal for the resolution of the dispute. However, ASUU has always had senous reservations about the claim of “conciliation” by someone who has taken sides in the dispute, or by unabashed protagonist in the crisis such as the current Minister of Labour and Employment. It is antithetical to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions (98, 151 & 154) on collective bargaining and tnpartism. It is against the principle of natural justice and the doctrine of equality for Dr. Ngige who carries himself as if he has personal scores to settle with ASUU and shoots down the Union everywhere it matters to assume the role of conciliator

 

“The Trade Dispute Act, the principal legislation for labour relations, does not empower the Minister to assume the office of conciliator. This is to guarantee the principle of “good faith in negotiations, which implies making every effort to reach an agreement, conducting genuine and constructive negotiations and applying them in good faith.

 

“A collective agreement is between an employer or group of employers or representative agent, on the one hand, and one or more workers’ organisation on the other. To the extent that the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Education, empanelled the Emeritus Prof. Nimi Briggs committee to negotiate on its behalf with university-based Unions in Nigeria, the purpose of which is to create and agreement between the parties, that committee is the representative agent of government. Any resolution(s), reached by the parties, such as draft agreements, are then to be ratified by the authorised signatories on behalf of the parties to achieve a binding collective bargaining agreement.

 

“ASUU therefore makes bold to say that the Minister of Labour and Employment has taken upon himself the role of unabashed protagonist in our ongoing dispute with the government of Nigeria for some inexplicable reasons. Dr Ngige earlier told whoever cared to listen that he was not the employer of university academics and advised the union to march to the Ministry of Education. Nigerians may wish to know why he has suddenly turned around to constitute himself into impedin ent to an amicable resolution of the ongoing crisis”, he said.

 

Speaking on funding, the ASUU president said, “Comrades and compatriots, it has become the pastime of government officials to talk tough about billions and trillions of naira whenever the thorny issues of education and health sectors’ funding come up for mention.

 

“However, it is common knowledge that various sums of money in the same region which could have been deployed for human capacity development and public good usually develop into the thin air at the end of the day! We are therefore not surprised the leadership of the Ministry of Labour and Employment could condescend to the point of denigrating the import of massive injection of fund into the University Education sub-sector as they tried to miserably dismiss the vexed issue of funding Nigerian public universities and uplifting the country’s intellectual capital.

 

“While government and its agents, would like to look at the issue in the “here and now and funding as a one-off matter, we prefer to look at it longitudinally.

 

“ASUU believes that the idea of availability of funds is a dynamic process. For instance, government can mobilize funds from different sources including non budgetary outlets like stamp-duty, GSM and alcoholic taxes. These were parts of our recommendations at the National Workshop organised by the Federal government on sustainable funding of education in Nigeria, held between 27th and 28th November, 2018, at the Banquet Hall of the State House in Abuja. At the workshop, MDAs were also challenged to remit, for the purpose of raising budgetary profile, excesses that accrue and not accounted for.

 

“We insist that, until and unless these sources of loose funds are pooled and appropriated in support of education funding. Nagenan Universities will not be positioned to compete globally as well as develop and attract local and foreign grants.

 

“The Minister of Education adnutted at the Inter-Ministerial Retreat in November 2017 that Nigeria was lagging behind less endowed African countries in terms of investment in education. In his words “None of the E9 or DS countries allocates less than 20% of its annual budget to education In the last seven years of the outgoing government the country’s annual budgetary allocation have not gone beyond eight percent! Is this progress?

 

“We are appalled by the recent calls by top government functionaries at both federal end state levels to establish more uruversities at a time agencies run by same Chief Executives are tightly squeezed for funding The little that is available is thinly spread across many tertiary institutions with minimal impact Many hests of tertiary institutions in the country would not hesitate to confess that their universities polytechnics and colleges would have gone under but for the existence of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund). We restate our opposition to the proliferation of universities and other tertiary institutions merely for political gains or electoral value.

 

“Nigerians should read through the intentions of hypocritic political jobbers when dangling the carrots of siting institutions they have no intention of developing to compete with others in Africa and beyond

 

“ASUU appreciates some recent efforts by critical stakeholders across the broad spectrum of the Nigerian society to resolve the logjam and restore normalcy on our university campuses The initiatives of the NLC and its affiliate unions are quite commendable. But it is not over until it is over!.

 

“We also acknowledge the interest of political actors in various groups and platforms who have promised to wade in ASUU’s doors of engagements are wide open to all, but we remain unsympathetic to political party sentiments and blackmail irrespective of where such are coming For a greater and better Nigeria, education is key.

 

“So, we remain focused on our goal of making the Nigerian University system internationally competitive and our gething our products to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their peers in any part of the world.

 

“We appreciate the teeming Nigerians for identifying with our vision in this respect We specifically acknowledge the support and sacrifices of our students (including our members who are running their postgraduate programmes) as well as their parents; they are our critical partners in this transformation project.

 

“We in ASUU shall do our utmost best not to let you down.

 

“Compatriots of the Press, ASUU appreciates your concerns and sympathetic support. We are as bothered as you are because we share a common interest in the Nigeria project. However, ASUU shall continue to be guided by the sacred canons of integrity, objectivity, and responsibility to which both academics and media practitioners subscribe.

 

“It is our fervent hope and desire that the current groundswell of interests would culminate in a convergence of solutions to this avoidable crisis in the overall interest of Nigeria Together, we shall win”, he said.

 

.We won’t accept any disparity in varsity salary–SSANU

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian University, (SSANU) yesterday commended President Muhammadu Buhari for his intervention in the ongoing strike embarked upon by the university based unions.

 

It also warned the Professor Nimi-Briggs Committee renegotiating the 2009 Agreement that it will not accept any disparity in University staff salary and would take every legal action to ensure that such didn’t happen.

 

This is as SSANU has commended the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige for what it described as his dexterity in ensuring that all university-based unions are carried along in the renegotiation exercise.

 

The National President of SSANU, Comrade Mohammed Ibrahim stated this in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday on the alleged proposed salary disparity by the Nimi-Briggs Committee for the university staff.

 

According to him, “We have read in the media that there is a proposal for the review of salary for University staff with a differential of teaching staff taking between 108 to 180 percent and unreasonable of 10 percent for non teaching staff.

 

“We are shocked to read that the Nimi Briggs Committee has submitted a report to the government while we only met with them twice. To say the least, SSANU is not happy with the pace of work in that committee.

 

“While we only met twice with them, we are aware that they have met with the teaching staff not less than ten times. We are surprised how the so-called percentage was allocated to non teaching staff. We have not had the opportunity of discussing salary review with them because the committee stated that they have not gotten the approval of their principal to discuss that.

 

“We are seriously shocked and taken aback by the media report that a certain miserable, unacceptable percentage was recommended to non teaching staff. We therefore advise that that committee should as a matter of urgency, conclude renegotiation with us.”

 

The SSANU boss told the committee to immediately reconvene to conclude the assignment given to it by discussing frankly and truthfully the 2009 renegotiation document presented to it.

 

Warning that the non teaching staff would not take it likely any attempt to have different payment table for staff, he said, “This is because the university system is a universal system comprising two broad categories of staff, the teaching, and the non-teaching staff and the salary consideration has always been the same except for allowances.

 

“Therefore, any attempt to give preferential treatment to any group will not only be unfair but unjust and inhumane.

 

“The way the university operates, we are all in the system because of the students, the students are the most important stakeholder in the university project. Therefore, while the teaching staff is busy imparting knowledge to the students, the non-teaching staff have the responsibility of molding the character of students through the provision of a conducive and secure atmosphere and that is why at the end of any student graduating degrees are awarded to students if they are found worthy in character and learning. The teaching and nonteaching staff play complementary roles in making the university.

 

“There is no university community that can operate successfully without the two categories of staff.

 

“For us, that story remain a rumour but if there is any truth SSANU will resist it with any possible legal means available to us.

 

Commending Senator Ngige for the role he has played in handling the negotiation of the 2009 Agreement, he said, “SSANU is happy with the dexterity of the Minister of Labour and Employment in ensuring that all university-based unions a