The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine

Tag: ASUU Strike

  • ASUU: Minister for Education jets out of country amidst strike

    Amid unresolved issues between the federal government and members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Minister of education, Adamu Adamu has jetted out of Nigeria.

    According to reports, Adamu is expected back on 2 September.

    Adamu is said to have been mandated by President Muhammadu Buhari to lead talks with a view to resolving the long-running ASUU strike.

    But, the minister’s trip has further dragged the reconciliation moves by the government without meaningful offers to resolve the strike.

    Meanwhile, ASUU plans to declare an indefinite strike on 29 August, backed by its branches in federal and state universities, to escalate an industrial action that began on 14 February after all warnings failed to yield any result.

    Earlier, president of ASUU, Emmanuel Osodeke declined calls by the National Parents-Teachers Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN) that parents of higher institution students be levied N10,000 each per session to fund tertiary education.

    Osodeke rather enjoined parents to join ASUU to press down its demands on the federal government to prioritise education by funding the sector in order to thrive.

  • NLC protests against fuel hike, ASUU strike, bad governance

    The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has finally embarked on a two-day protest it promised, to register its displeasure over the lingering ASUU strike and other issues affecting the country.

    The Congress has embarked on the nationwide protest in solidarity with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and other affiliate unions over the lingering industrial action in public universities in Nigeria.

    In a circular sent to state councils of NLC by the national secretariat and obtained by Vanguard, national president, Comrade Ayuba Wabba told fellow workers that the national days of protest was in support of unions in Nigeria’s public universities who are fighting for quality education.

    “In line with the decisions of the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Nigeria Labour Congress held on the 30th of June 2022, we have scheduled as follows the national days of protest to get our children back to school and support our unions in Nigeria’s public universities fighting for quality education.

    “You are requested to immediately convene the meetings of your SAC to disseminate this information and to fully mobilize workers in the states for this very important protest for good governance,” Comrade Wabba said in the circular jointly signed by the NLC general secretary, Comrade Emmanuel Ugboaja.

    In line with the agreement, Members of the Congress, Tuesday stormed the streets of Lagos, with placards emblazoned with different inscriptions.

    Some of the inscriptions are: “Nigeria at 60 years Independence, More hunger in the land”. “Reduce the costs of governance now. Save the masses from poverty and hunger”. “Stop importation of petrol, revive the refineries”.

    The protest will last for two days.

    (Vanguard)

  • ASUU sustaining strike with lies, blackmail, threat, FG spent N421.27bn on varsities — Presidency officials

    Accusing ASUÛ leaders of sustaining the on-going strike by blackmail, threat and feeding members with lies about government’s efforts at resolving the industrial action, some Presidency officials told Vanguard that the Federal Government has implemented five out of the seven issues on the Memorandum of Action, MoA, it signed with the leaders of ASUU in December 2020 and has paid not less than N92.27billion as Earned Academic Allowances, EAA, among others to ASUU members before embarked on strike.

    This is different from the N304 billion from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund TETFUND for 2021 and first quarter of 2022.

    According to them, “the universities received N25 billion for all their staff in May 2022 arising from the consequential adjustment of the 2019 minimum wage. What this means is that every staff of the Federal Government was given 10 per cent increase as against what he or she was earning before the new minimum wage.”

    One of the officials said: “The Federal Government paid ASUU N40 billion EAA as Earned Allowance in January/February 2021 for 2020. The government also paid N22.27 billion for 2021 mainstreamed into 2021 budget as promised to ASUU in the MoA. Similarly, N30 billion was paid in June 2021 for Revitalisation as contained in the MoA, amounting to about N92.27billion.

    “On the issue of ASUU’s University Transparency Accountability Solution, UTAS, as against the Federal Government’s Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, IPPIS, UTAS, has been tested since 2021. While it passed USER Acceptance, it failed Integrity test. That is, it did not pass vulnerability test against hackers, stress and traffic usage/ accommodation.

    “You are aware that the other unions in the university system, especially the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, NASU, and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, said they developed their own payment platform which they call University Peculiar Payroll and Payment System, U3PS or UPPPS. NASU and SSANU have vowed that even if UTAS is 100 percent perfect, their members would not key into it. How do you describe that? It is total confusion.

    “Nevertheless, as part of efforts to resolve the issue, further tests on UTAS and UPPPS, even, the IPPIS are ongoing at the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA. But ASUU’s insistence on the usage of UTAS whether good or bad shows how they want the matter to remain unresolved. As part of the implementation of the MoA, on the visitation panels to the universities, it has been done. The panel’s work has been concluded and its gazette will be released anytime.

    “On the issue of renegotiation of 2009 agreement, another official informed that “it was actually renegotiated in 2013/ 2014 and to be reviewed every five years. The Wale Babalakin committee started the renegotiation in 2018 and left it later for Professor Munzali. Because its proposal in 2021 was not processed in the Federal Ministry of Education until October 2021, a new committee was set up headed by Professor Nimi Briggs.

    Unfortunately, the committee also decided not to work with the appropriate Federal Government agencies like the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Budget Office, National Salaries Incomes and Wages Commission, Office of Head Civil Service of the Federation and Ministry of Labour and Employment that fix and recommend salaries and wages and public service Conditions of Service as proposal to the Federal Ministry of Education and Presidential Committee on Salaries and Wages.

    “However, ASUU went back to tell its members that an agreement has been drawn up. This is in bad faith as any such agreement is guided by capacity and ability to pay. The proposal’s financial implications as it affects the 44,377 lectures with about 7,000 professors when you include other staff in the universities comes to about one trillion Naira a month. The Presidential committee on Salaries chaired by the Minister of Finance as we speak is still working on a template to accommodate all in the Education sector including Polytechnics and colleges of Education.”

    Lamenting, one of the sources, said: “ASUU’s habit is to intimidate everybody. Because UTAS failed integrity test, they said the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Patami ‘s Professorship should be withdrawn, accusing him of asking NITDA to fail UTAS. They also threatened to withdraw the certificate of the Director-General of NITDA from ABU. At the negotiation table, they used threat which is against ILO principles of Collective Bargaining.

    They have been feeding their members with lies. As a union, you must conform to the tenets of unionism. The Labour law says once a matter has been apprehended by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, you go back to work. Go and check Section Eight of the Trade Dispute Act. It is there.”

    (Vanguard)

  • Strike: Enough is enough, Buhari tells ASUU

    President Muhammadu Buhari urged the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to reconsider their position on its prolonged strike, expressing concerns on the generational consequences for families, the educational system and the country’s future development.

    This is as the Presidency has given reasons it has been difficult to end the ongoing industrial action by ASUU which commenced since February 14.

    A statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, yesterday, quoted President Buharu lamenting how the strike had taken a toll on the psychology of parents, students and other stakeholders, throwing up many moral issues that beg for attention.

    Buhari said enough is enough on the lecturers’ strike as the future of the country rests on the quality of its educational institutions.

    The president made the appeal when he received some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC), legislators and political leaders at his Daura, Katsina State residence, yesterday.

    “We hope that ASUU will sympathise with the people on the prolonged strike. Truly, enough is enough for keeping students at home. Don’t hurt the next generation for goodness sake,” he said.

    The president urged all well-meaning Nigerians, particularly those close to the ASUU’s leaders and members to intervene in persuading the lecturers to reconsider their position even as he assured that the government understood their position and that negotiations should continue, with students in lecture halls.

    He stated that students from Nigerian universities will face the challenge of competing with others in a highly connected and technologically driven work environment, and that keeping them at home only deprived them of time, skills and opportunities to be relevant on the global stage.

    “Colonial type education was geared towards producing workers in government. Those jobs are no longer there. Our young people should get education to prepare them for self-employment. Now education is for the sake of education. Through technology we are much more efficient. We should encourage our children to get education, not only to look for government jobs.”

    Buhari said resources should be channeled more into building infrastructure and operations of the health and educational sector, not to expand the bureaucracy to create job opportunities.

    In a related development, Shehu, who speak on a live television programme, monitored in Lagos, yesterday, buck-passed the inability to end the protracted strike to the incompetence of the then administration in 2009 that reached an agreement with ASUU that was not feasible to fulfil.

    He also said that it was not right for the lecturers to continue to insist on government meeting all its grievances.

    On Buhari’s message to members of the union to go back to the classroom, warning that enough is enough, he said: “The president has a right to appeal on behalf of Nigerians for ASUU to back to work. Don’t forget that the problem started by the then 2009 government which incompetently signed into agreement which they had no capacity to deliver upon and they have passed it on from one government to another.

    “So we should ask the question of what happened in the past with the administrations. That is our worry. There are also other sectors of the economy that are yearning for attention. The Military needs weapons. The resources available to the government have to go round.”

    (Sun)

  • ASUU turns down appeals to end strike

    The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other industry based unions have turned down the appeal by the federal government to resume duties while negotiations are ongoing to meet up with their demands.

    President Muhammadu Buhari had on Thursday, pleaded with the unions to go back to work when he spoke at the National Productivity Day Celebration held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    But, at the President’s Chief of Staff Prof. Ibrahim Gambari’s led meeting between the federal government team, ASUU and other registered Trade Unions in Nigerian universities, as well as identified interest groups and Civil societies, still at the State House on Thursday, ASUU had insisted it would not bulge until its demands were met.

    ASUU president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke said that there was nothing on ground from the government side to warrant that.

    “There is nothing on ground for us to consider. We are not stopping the strike until something concrete is done,”

    According to Osodeke, before the current strike, the union had given enough period of grace to enable the government and its agencies to meet with them and to address their demands but to no avail.

    He said that the government had withheld the salaries of the Lecturers as a strategy to force them resume work.

    Earlier, while addressing the leadership of the unions and stakeholders at the opening of the talks, Gambari appealed to the striking university workers to sheathe their sword and agree to return to work while discussions over their demands go on.

    According to him, allowing the strike to prolong further will not be in the interest of anyone, adding that President Muhammadu Buhari had mandated the team to try and end the strike.

    Also Speaking, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige disclosed that some agreements had been reached between the parties with hopes that the strike would be called off by next week.

    According to Ngige, “We have reached some agreements and we hope that by next week, those agreements will be maturing and the different unions will have something to tell their members, so that they can call off the strike. We have put some timelines for some aspects like renegotiation of 2009 agreement in terms of condition of service and wage review.

    So, we are hopeful that by next weekend, the unions will see a conclusion of that area.”

    On their part, the two Co-chair of the Nigeria Interreligious Council (NIREC), Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar II and president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Rev Samson Ayokunle urged ASUU and the non-teaching staff unions to accept the president’s plea and suspend their strike while efforts are made to address the issues in dispute

    (Sun)

  • FG deliberately frustrating efforts to end strike –ASUU

    Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has accused the Federal Government of deliberately frustrating efforts it was making to end the ongoing industrial action.

    It said the failure of government to honour the 2020 FGN-ASUU memorandum of action (MOA) with a view to addressing the myriad of challenges confronting public universities has kept the strike alive.

    Coordinator of ASUU in Owerri zone, Uzo Onyebinama, during a press conference at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, said the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) integrity test was 99.3 per cent yet the Federal Government refused to use it.

    Other ASUU leaders at the briefing were Okey Aniebo (Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University), Chinedu Ihejirika (Federal University of Technology), Odinakachukwu Ejiogu (Imo State University), Chike Ugwuene, (Michael Okpara University of Agriculture) and Steve Ufoaroh, chairperson (NAU).

    “Another major outstanding issue is the reluctance of the Federal Government to deploy UTAS as a payment platform for the salaries and other entitlements of academic staff in public universities.

    “UTAS is a brainchild of ASUU borne out of the patriotic zeal to improve financial and programme accounting in public universities, after it became obvious that the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System had contributed to and compounded corruption in public universities.

    “UTAS is home-grown and is compliant with global best practice in the industry. It received a score of 99.3 per cent after remediation and conclusion of tests by the Nigerian Technology Development Agency,” Onyebinama said.

    (Sun)