Nigerian Labor and Employment Minister Chris Ngige has again expressed his hope that the ongoing strike by Union of Academic Staff of Universities (ASUU) will soon be cancelled.
The minister, speaking at the resumption of the conciliation meeting between the government and teachers’ union representatives on Tuesday afternoon, said the meeting would end with the “action” demanded by the union.
The union also reiterated its position shortly before the meeting that it was no longer interested in signing any memoranda of understanding or action, but that the government should demonstrate its sincerity with previous agreements through prompt implementation.
PREMIUM TIMES had previously reported how the meeting between the two sides last week ended in deadlock.
ASUU speaks
ASUU national president Emmanuel Osodeke said the union had engaged with the government and had been signing a number of agreements over the last five years, but most of the agreements were never implemented.
He said: “So we no longer want a memorandum of action or a memorandum of understanding. What we want is action.”
Mr. Osodeke insisted that all his demands can be met in a very short time.
He said: “I think this can be done easily if the leadership of this country believes that there is a crisis in the education sector in Nigeria – primary, secondary and tertiary.
“All these issues that we are discussing, we can resolve in a week, but the strike is going on for three weeks and we are still talking. Nigerians want to see action, students want to see action, and our members want to see action.”
Confusion
Meanwhile, at the last meeting, the parties agreed to give a joint committee of ASUU and officials from the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) two weeks to fix problems identified in the University Transparency and Accountability Solutions ( UTAS) which was developed by ASUU to replace the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) introduced by the government.
However, the two weeks will run on March 8, but ASUU said it did not receive any invitation from the government.
However, as the meeting resumed on Tuesday, NITDA representatives said the agency had communicated its willingness to meet with the union to the Ministry of Labor and Education.
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But when NITDA said it was ready to meet with the ASUU side on Wednesday, Osodeke said that was impossible because its members are based in Bauchi and not Abuja.
Another session behind closed doors
On Tuesday, after introductory commitments at the resumption of the meeting, the parties entered a closed-door session with two main points of earned academic allocation and revitalization fund for public universities, for deliberation.
background
ASUU had embarked on a four-week warning strike to press its demands, including the renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU/FG agreement, the sustainability of university autonomy through the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to replace the “imposed” Integrated Government. Information System of Personnel Payroll (IPPIS), the disclosure of the reports of the visiting panels to the federal universities and the distortions in the contestations of the payment of salaries.
Others include funding for revitalization of public universities, earned academic allocation, underfunding of state universities, and delays in promotion.
Although the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, days after the beginning of the strike constituted the white paper panel of the visiting panels, he has yet to inaugurate them.
After the last meeting between ASUU and the government delegation, Mr. Ngige described the strike as illegal and said that the union failed to give the 14 days notice required by law before embarking on the strike.
In its defense, ASUU said that it did not embark on a new strike and that the current strike was a continuation of its suspended strike in December 2020.
Ngige added that most of ASUU’s demands are already being met, but ASUU said none of its demands have been fully met.