FG Meeting With ASUU On Monday

Federal Government and Academic Staff Union of Universities are expected to meet on Monday in a bid to avert a fresh strike.

The chairmen of ASUU branches had expressed readiness to commence a fresh strike over the non-implementation of their agreement with FG on IPPIS.

One of the Chairman of ASUU, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Dr Ibrahim Inuwa, said the protracted strike, which was to press home the union members’ demands for the continued survival of the public university system in Nigeria, was suspended in December after the two parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the various issues and providing timelines for the implementation of each of the eight items in the agreement.

Dr Inuwa said over seven months after the MoU was signed only two out of the eight issues had been addressed,

He listed some of the outstanding issues to include payment of the earned academic allowance, funding for revitalization of public universities, salary shortfall, proliferation of state universities and setting up of visitation panels.

Others are renegotiation, replacement of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System with the University Transparency and Accountability Solution and withheld salaries and non-remittance of check-off dues.

A statement by the Deputy Director, Press and Public Relations at the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr. Charles Akpan, said the minister, Senator Chris Ngige, will be hosting the leadership of the ASUU to a meeting at the ministry’s conference room, federal Secretariat in Abuja.

“The Minister for Labour and Employment Dr. Chris Ngige will be hosting a meeting with ASUU. The meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 2, 2021 at Minister’s Conference Room,” the letter read.

The National President, ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, had told The PUNCH that the union was invited by the Ministry of Labour to discuss issues surrounding the Memorandum of Action, which was signed with the Federal Government in December 2020.

However, Osodeke, explained the last time the union met with the government was around March/April.

He said, “The Ministry of Education, which is our ministry, has not called us to any meeting since we signed the Memorandum of Action. But the Ministry of Labour, which is just an intervention ministry, around March/April called us to a meeting in which we discussed and they promised to implement all those things.”