ASUU, FG Reach Agreement, to Call Off Strike Soon

By Jide Afolabi, Jos

The striking Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU and the Federal Government have reached an agreement according to Dr Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment, on Monday.

Ngige made the announcement after a reconciliation meeting in Abuja aimed at finding ways of resolving the strike which commenced on November 5.

He said, “we have finished our deliberation for today. I am happy to report that we touched some areas of understanding in implementation from the Memorandum of Action which we agreed to in 2017.

“Some of these areas we have substantial compliance and some other areas have not been fully dealt with.

“Like the issue of shortfall in salaries of some Federal Universities’ workers and lecturers, ASUU has given a list to the Accountant-General’s Office and we have agreed that by Wednesday that list should be cross-checked by the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Auditing.

“So, the Accountant-General’s Office is to get back to us by Wednesday.

“We also have the issue of earned allowances, revitalisation, these are issues of 2009 agreement and partial implementation and we have agreed on the modus operandi to look into the fund situation, this is due to low revenue on the part of government.”

Ngige said that government would look for the money and was sure to have good information for the striking lecturers.

He said the same situation applied to other allowances, saying, “we have agreed on what we are going to do to make sure that the outstanding amount is handled in a way that all parties will be properly accommodated.

“We also discussed the issue of state universities and agreed also that even if education is on the concurrent list, the universities should be properly funded and staffed so that we do not produce half-baked students from those universities.

“In realisation of this the Ministry of Education will set up a committee, that would engage the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, and the Minister of Education has taken steps in that direction to formalise the interaction.

The minister hoped that the striking union would return back to classrooms has agreement has been reached.

He said the next meeting would be at 4pm on December 17.

Meanwhile, ASUU National President, Prof. Abiodun Ogunyemi said they had a useful discussion.

“Our own understanding is that we heard promises made on the part of government, we shall await the report on all the issues, which they have made the promises.

“Only after that, we can get back to our members to take a decision, ”.