…constitute committee to ASUU demands
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The federal government has, shockingly, stated that it has no signed agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
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This was in response to the union’s claims that the federal government has failed to implement the content of the agreement it had with the union a few years ago, which mostly bordered on re-negotiation of the 2009 agreement, sustainable funding of universities, revitalization of universities, victimization of their colleges in LASU, KSU (now Prince Abubakar Audu University) and FUTO.
Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, told journalists in Abuja, on Thursday, that all the claimed agreements by ASUU were just a draft proposal that was not signed by the government.
He said: “I read some reports in the media today (Wednesday) indicating that we have a meeting with ASUU. That’s not correct. Rather, we had an expanded meeting with relevant stakeholders to review the content of the draft agreement the government had with ASUU a few years.
“The government side met today (Thursday), and this includes myself, the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba; Minister for Labour and Productivity, and the Solicitor General of the Federation. We agreed to fix this thing once and for all.
“In the previous agreement that ASUU had with the government, the Ministry of Justice was not involved. This time, we want to correct it anomaly. We want to this thing in a constitutional manner where every single agreement that we reach with them will be legally binding and within the context of our constitution.
“The Solicitor General of the Federation and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Productivity, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian University Commission (NUC), Executive Secretary of the TETFund, Chairman of the Salary and Wages Commission, and the Director General of the Budget Office, also participated in the expanded meeting.
“The proposal that ASUU has given us, we went through it line by line with a view to discuss, deliberate what the government can afford, what is within the constitutional purview of the federal government. We have reviewed all the proposals that they gave to us, line by line, and decided on a counter-proposal to them.
“We ended the meeting by setting up a high-level technical team to clean up our proposal and come with a clean document. The technical team is being chaired by the Permanent Secretary of Education, with the following membership, the Solicitor General of the Federation and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Productivity, the Chairman of the Salary and Wages Commission, Executive Secretary of NUC, Executive Secretary of the TETFund, and the Director General of Budget Office are also part of the seven-member technical team. The Director of the University of Education serves as the secretary.
“We have mandated them to come back to us with a clean report. Once we finalized our own proposal to ASUU, we will give that proposal, a counter-proposal to the Yayale Ahmed committee to take to ASUU, and then ASUU would talk and deliberate, and will come back to us.
“We will work as seriously, quickly, and as fast as possible to get an agreement with ASUU. But there’s a point of correction. The Solicitor General looked into the previous agreement with ASUU and realised it was not signed. It was a draft agreement. So, I need to be honest and truthful to Nigeria. ASUU might have an impression, but they do not have a signed agreement with the government. There was no signed agreement with the government.”
The Minister assured Nigerians that the government will do everything as a responsible government and work with ASUU and all other trade unions so that the institutions will be open and the children will be in school.
The Minister added: “We have engaged with ASUU. We have worked shoulder with a shoulder with them. We still met with ASUU President and their leadership just as early as just last week, Tuesday or Wednesday. What we have told them about their demands was that the government side will meet, and that’s what we did on Thursday. We have a responsive government that fulfils every single promise made.”
The post UPDATED: Strike: No signed agreement with ASUU — FG insists appeared first on The Sun Nigeria.
