FG ‘ll meet ASUU on all issues, strike uncalled for, says Adamu Adamu

 AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja

The Federal Government has frowned at the decision of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, to embark on four weeks warning strike, regretting that the action was abrupt in the midst of negotiations.

The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, who made this position known to State House correspondents at the end of the meeting of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, denied that he had been shunning meetings with the union.

    The meeting was presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Wednesday.

    ASUU had declared a one month warning strike on Monday over unresolved demands, which they claimed the federal government had been reluctant to meet.

    The minister, however, stated that he had been the one summoning meetings with ASUU in an effort to resolve contentious issues.

    He said, “ASUU, unfortunately, have gone on strike and I am looking for them because all the issues are being addressed.

    “The last thing that happened was that our committee looked at their demands but there are renegotiations going on. They submitted a draft agreement which the ministry is looking at.”

    On the draft agreement with ASUU, he said: “A committee is looking at it. Immediately it finishes, the government is meant to announce what it had accepted. Then suddenly, I heard them going on strike.”

    Adamu dismissed the insinuation that he deliberately refused to attend meetings with ASUU.

    “ASUU will never say that. I always call the meeting myself. The meetings I didn’t attend were those that happened when I was in hospital in Germany.

    “We want a peaceful resolution. The federal government is ready to meet them on all issues they have raised and if there are so many meetings and the gap is not closing, then, I think it’s not the fault of the government.

    “There is a solution to this. The negotiations are the solution and that is why I have said that I am surprised that ASUU has gone on strike.”

    Asked if the government can reach an agreement with ASUU before the end of the 30-day strike, the minister said: “I can’t give you time. I am ready to reach an agreement with ASUU now but since I’m not the only one, I can’t give you time but certainly we are going to reach an agreement very soon.”

     The minister also defended the discriminatory cut-off marks for southern and northern prospective Common Entrance admission candidates for Unity Schools, saying that “it is in line with the Federal Character principle.’’

    According to him, the policy will remain until such a time it is no longer necessary.

  “I am not aware of any difference unless it is meant to satisfy the requirements of federal character.

“I think federal character is required for the nation and it is accepted. There is nothing we can do about that. There would come a time when it would not be necessary

Meanwhile, students of the University of Benin, UNIBEN, Wednesday barricaded the ever-busy Benin-Ore-Sagamu road to protest the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Recall that ASUU had declared a month warning strike on Monday, after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Lagos with the Federal Government failed to yield any results

The students in their hundreds were seen at the Ugbowo campus entrance chanting solidarity songs with placards of inscriptions as: ‘education is our right’; ‘5 years course has turned to 7 years; ‘FG settle ASUU” and “Enough is Enough.’

Expressing their frustration, the students appealed to the Federal Government to heed to ASUU’s demands.

 Some students turned the highway into a football field, playing in sets while the students’ leaders were sharing bottles of water, soft drinks, pies and doughnuts to the demonstrators for refreshment

The protest caused a gridlock on the highway for hours, forcing many motorists to avoid the route while those going into the state capital had to divert to other routes.

 Leading the protest, the President of the Students Union Government (SUG) in the institution, Foster Amadin, lamented that the students were on the streets because they are tired of perennial strikes by ASUU.

“We came to the street to say we are tired. We hereby express our grievances to the Federal Government, the state government and whoever cares to listen. We say we are tired.

 “We want to graduate. For a programme that is supposed to run for four years, we are spending five years and even more. We don’t want it anymore.”

 Amadin said all they want is to return to classes and graduate from the institution.

“Let the federal government see to the demands of ASUU and let ASUU also consider the federal government’s position.

 “All we want is to go back to our classes. I want to graduate, I want to leave the school. I am tired and that is our grievance,” he said.

 Meanwhile, the Ministry of Labour and Employment has reacted to a statement from the President, National Association  of Nigeria Students(NANS)  Sunday  Isefon, blaming  the ongoing strike by the ASUU on the  Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige .

A statement by the Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations in the Ministry, Charles Akpan, said the statement which threatened  to mobilise students to disrupt the activities of the Ministry is inflammatory and  misguided.

The statement said: “Though neither the Ministry nor its officials who since November 2015 have successfully conciliated 1,786 trade disputes, would wish to join issues with students who certainly do not  have enough information about the commitment of the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige  to the return of stability and excellence to the universities , indeed his untiring efforts to enthrone a peaceful  national industrial milieu, it is imperative we make salient clarifications on the misinformation and misrepresentation on what has become  an unending ritual of strike by ASUU vis a vis the ongoing action.

“The reason is to carry along, all genuinely concerned Nigerian students and parents on the commitment of the Buhari administration to resolve  age long challenges besetting the  university system as well  as apprise them   of the steps being taken by the Minister of Labour and Employment in the discharge of his responsibilities in this wise.

 “First is to note  that university lecturers who operate under a union of workers, the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) affiliated to the Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC) are employees of the universities being overseen on behalf of the Federal Government by the National Universities Commission, a  parastatal under the Ministry of Education.

“The Federal Ministry of Education being in charge of everything Education is hence the employers of all workers in the education sector including the academic and non-academic staff of federal universities.  The Ministry of Labour for clarity, is the conciliator of disputes between workers and their employers in various Ministries, in this case ASUU and Ministry of Education.

“It is thus completely false that the Minister of Labour and Employment hasn’t paid attention to monitoring the implementation of the December 2020 ASUU/ FG Memorandum of Action. Apart for the Federal Ministry of Education, other ministries, departments and agencies involved in the agreement include the National Universities Commission, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget & National Planning, Budget office of the Federation, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and National Information Technology Development Agency ( NITDA). Though not assigned to it in  the MOA, the  Minister of Labour and Employment has been monitoring the implementation of the MOA to ensure compliance.

 “It should be noted also that until the Honourable Minister left for the African Regional Labour  Centre Governing Council, 1st Post COVID-19 physical meeting in Botswana on 14th February 2022, the Ministry never received any official communication from ASUU on any impending strike as required by Labour Laws. Further enquiries at the Ministry’s Labour Desk in the Federal  Ministry  of Education in case ASUU chose to drop the notice there also revealed none. Ask the reason ASUU is in  regular breach of this laid down procedure for embarking on strike.

 “Though not our mandate, the  Minister of Labour has been pushing all affected MDAs to discharge their own side of the Agreement. For instance,  though not explicitly written in the Agreement rather a “gentleman understanding,” the Minister to show good faith, wrote a passionate letter to the President to approve on compassionate ground, the payment of eight months salaries of ASUU members withheld for the period they were at home, refusing to teach the students either physically or virtually as was being done in almost all private universities. The money was later paid in tranches of 3  months or 2 months plus December 2020. This is notwithstanding that ASUU performed no academic activities in that month of December.

    “The N40bn Earned Allowances was paid in February/March 2021.The N30bn Revitalization that suffered delay was paid in October/  with another N22.72bn mainstreamed into the 2021 Budget also paid November 2021. So in all,  a total of N92.72B was paid as per the December 2020 Agreement apart from the withheld salaries running into hundreds of billions for period not at work, that is ,  No work no pay as contained in Section 43 of Trade Dispute Act.

    “The truth is that any strike by university teachers also affects Ngige and his children the same way it affects ordinary Nigerians. During the 2020 strike, the Honourable  Minister doubled as a concerned parent and  Federal Government official, having three of his biological children in three Medical schools in different public universities in  Awka, Lagos and Uniabuja.

    “This doesn’t include the numerous fatherless and indigent students from all parts of the country that he is catering for under his Foundation’s Scholarship programme. It defies logic that Ngige as Minister  whose children and wards are in public schools would sleep comfortably  as university teachers shut down classes.

    “On the UTAS VS IPPIS imbroglio, the statement said, the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Finance  in 2016 made it mandatory to pay all her workers in all Treasury Funded Govt MDAs through the Integrated Personnel Payments System (IPPIS).

    “It said ASUU members picked holes with the system and described it as foreign packaged and not capturing the peculiarities of the University system.

    According to the statement, they opined that they were in the process of developing and providing a system which they named The University Transparency Accounting System.

    This system the statement said was not developed when in 2018 all MDAs not on IPPIS were given as terminal date.

    Continuing it said, during the 2019 Budget presentation also, the President directed that persons not on IPPIS shall not be paid from FG Treasury. ASUU went on strike.

    “On a courtesy visit to Mr. President early 2019, ASUU raised this issue. The Minister of Labour and Employment supported ASUU that if they have finished developing their system they ought to be encouraged in the spirit of Presidential Executive Order 3 & 5 that encourage homegrown human resources and local content, hence the system needed to be sent in for evaluation starting from the would be Users Federal  Ministry of Education/NUC and Federal Ministry of Finance /Accountant General of the Federation. Again not our job but the Honourable Minister of Labour  facilitated, coordinated and personally attended  these demonstrations with our officials all in a bid to make sure that things work out  and thereafter sought the Federal Ministry of Communication & Digital Economy/ NITDAs cooperation, analysis and Testing of the UTAS.

    “The system was to handshake with IPPIS as a first  step.

 ASUU again went on Strike in February 2020 saying their members should NOT be enrolled on IPPIS at all even when UTAS was not ready but that they should continue receiving their salaries and some allowances via the obnoxious cash system or the abolished recurrent GIFMIS system through which the Federal Government  incurred  a loss of about N750B annually paid to ghost workers and other fraudulent financial sharp practice. Is pertinent to note that no employee is allowed to dictate to an employer, mode of payment in his organisation in line with the ILO principle at work provided the wage/compensation is paid as and when due.

 “This Strike stretched  into the outbreak of Covid-19 and lasted till October /November with many stakeholders intervening to no avail and ASUU digging into their trenches and saying “no IPPIS but UTAS”. UTAS which in any case was not ready for use could not be deployed as it had already undergone the 1st stage of the User Acceptability test. Finally, good reason prevailed when some ASUU members secretly whispered to us and their leadership that as a matter of truth they were receiving salaries like other University workers that had voluntarily registered on the IPPIS. The 2020 agreement was born with a clause that ASUU members will continue receiving their salaries/allowances under this HYBRID IPPIS  arrangement until UTAS passes all the tests viz User Acceptability,  Integrity,  System Vulnerability and finally  the Hardware Compatibility. The hardware was to be sited in the  NUC and NITDA was also to access the site to match Hardware stora

 It stated further that: “The Honourable Minister of Communication & Digital Economy being a past CEO NITDA had worked very hard with NITDA and put out the results which was forwarded to ASUU on the areas of pass and failures/ defects in about more then 200 tested areas. This was after our interaction again in October/ November 2021.

 “ASUU analyzed the report and made their observations and disagreed with NITDA report. Honourable Minister of Labour  acted as the courier of the ASUU counter reports and asked affected agencies to get ready for a meeting of experts with a neutral Information Technology Development experts to assist our Ministry in order to put an end to the matter. This arrangement was still ongoing before this new 1 month warning strike

 On 2009 ASUU/ FG renegotiated agreement, the statement said: “a Committee on this had initially headed by Dr. Wale Babalakin SAN and later Professor Manzalli. This is an Education Ministry’s internal committee mandated by the parties to look into the issues of salaries/ Allowances in the  Universities and other item of conditions of Service. ASUU reported at the last conciliation that the committee had finished its work and handed in but the Education Minister reported to me when he came back from a long sick leave that the committee was being reconvened to complete their work after which it would be forwarded to the conciliation meeting from where if both parties agree on the work, it would be forwarded to the Presidential Committee on Salaries (Wages) .

    “The Minister of Labour  made this explanation and advised ASUU to get back to the Minister of Education  so as to forward that aspect of the negotiation as their employers so that it will also be transmitted fast to PCS.

With all these explanation,  it’s clear that the Minister of Labour  has continued to be proactive on matters affecting ASUU and in fact all the Universities based workers union like NASU,SSANU,

SSARTRAI and other to prevent undue disruption of academic activities in the University system.

 “NANS should appreciate the uncommon efforts and tireless work put in even far into the nights by the Labour Ministry & staff particularly when issues pertaining  to education and health, two  critical areas in our Industrial relations between employers and employees, now made very sour by increased cost of living and low purchasing power of present wages”.

 

 

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