THE ACADEMIC Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has lambasted the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, over alleged poor handling of the crisis between the union and the Federal Government.
On Tuesday, at a media briefing in Abuja, ASUU President Emmanuel Osodeke said Ngige has been insincere in how he handles the issues that necessitated the union’s ongoing strike and all efforts by the government to address the crisis.
This is even as ASUU called for a mobilisation of funds from different sources, including non-budgetary outlets like stamp duty, GSM and alcoholic taxes, to fund the nation’s public tertiary institutions.
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The group also urged the government to mop up unspent funds in its ministries, departments and agencies, among other funds, to boost funding for public universities.
Osodeke, a professor, said public tertiary institutions in the country only survived on funds from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
He said while countries with lower revenues in Africa gave 20 per cent of their annual budgets to education, the highest the Buhari administration offered was eight per cent.
The ASUU President opposed the call for more universities in the country, which he said the nation lacked the fund to manage.
He lauded the parents and other stakeholders’ efforts to resolve the crisis, including the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and other workers’ groups, which plan to embark on a nationwide solidarity rally for the union.
Osodeke said the Federal Government, through Ngige, had lied to Nigerians on the state of the over five-month-old strike.
He said Ngige had denied the existence of any agreement between ASUU and the government, among other falsehoods.
The ASUU President said Ngige should not be a conciliator between ASUU and the government, which he is part of and also because of his alleged bias on all issues in contention.
“Following the resumption of the strike action by our union at the University of Lagos, on the 14th February 2022, we participated in 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 manner the engagement processes were going, Dr Chirs Ngige 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.”
Read the full statement of the ASUU President at the media briefing here.
The ICIR reported that President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Minister of Education Adamu Adamu and Ngige to resolve the crisis within two weeks and report back to him.
Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2022. Contact him via email @ [email protected].