Due to the declaration of one month strike by the Association of Staff University Union, the federal government summoned a meeting with the union to trash the issue based on the industrial action that was taken.
At the time for the minute, around 1 pm today, the Employment and Labour Minister, Dr. Chris Ngige shifted the meeting till 2 pm today.
The meeting is scheduled as follows:
Date: Tuesday, 22nd February 2022.
Time: 1 pm
Venue: Honorable Minister’s Conference room.”
ASUU on Monday, February 14, 2022, had declared a four-week( one month) total strike over the failure of the government to implement some of the agreements it made with the union since 2019.
It was declared after the announcement of the strike that the federal government of Nigeria was not aware of the strike by ASUU as no official message came to the office of the minister of labor and employment headed by Dr. Chris Ngige.
The meeting between ASUU and FG went as follows and so many things were revealed as some blamed the minister for the strike for not acting as a labor activist.
In tackling an issue, you need to, as a matter of first importance, recognize the issue and the critical components of the issue. You don’t take care of an issue, fortunately. Assuming the understudy chief visited his library before giving the articulation, I am certain he would have coordinated his fault somewhere else.
A basic historical verification should have uncovered to him that any strike by college educators influences Ngige and his youngsters, the same way it influences conventional Nigerians. During the 2020 ASUU strike, the Minister was trapped in the middle of playing out his obligations as an extremely senior government official and assuming the part of a concerned parent whose three organic youngsters were in clinical schools of three distinct state-funded colleges in Awka, Lagos, and Abuja.
This is other than a various bastard and impoverished understudies from all pieces of the country that he is cooking for under the Sen. Chris Ngige Foundation Scholarship Scheme.
In October last year, ASUU while praising Ngige for sending his kids to state-funded colleges, portrayed him as a good example for exhibiting remarkable confidence in the Nigerian college framework.
Along these lines, rather than taking part in such excessive explosions fit for heightening the all-around tense climate in Nigerian colleges, I anticipate NANS as the umbrella collection of 30 million Nigerian understudies at home and abroad, to help Ngige to guarantee that he supports his untiring and enthusiastic endeavors towards settling the debate among ASUU and the Federal Government, to return harmony to our ivory towers.
I’m glad that no matter what the impolite and uncouth methodology took on by NANS in connecting with the Minister, being a dad, he considered it fit to react to the assertion from the understudy body using an epistle-like press articulation by the representative of his Ministry.
Politeness of this reaction, we currently realize that many billions of naira have been paid to ASUU for the period they were not working, prompting the conjuring of the “No Work, No Pay Rule” as contained in Section 43 of the Trade Dispute Act. We are currently mindful that N40bn Earned Allowances was paid in February/March 2021.
It is presently in the public space that the N30bn Revitalisation that endured delay was paid in October last year with another N22.7bn mainstreamed into the 2021 spending plan and paid in November 2021 by the 2020 arrangement. Altogether, an aggregate of N92.72bn was paid.
Without delving into the subtleties of what happened on the UTA versus IPPIS quandary, we are currently mindful of the continuous game plan of the Minister at settling the matter before ASUU left on the one-month cautioning strike.
A piece of the courses of action is asking NITDA and other impacted organizations to prepare for a gathering with impartial Information Technology Development specialists to help the Ministry to settle the matter.
The endeavors being made by the Federal Government to address different complaints of ASUU were consecutively counted by the representative of the Ministry of Labor. Taking everything into account, I wish to engage NANS to apply more restrictions in additional intercessions on the continuous debate among ASUU and the Federal Government.
The strike is an evil breeze that blows no one any great thus, all partners should work in show towards its rapid goal.
Ngige and the staff of his service merit honor for their penances to forestall excessive interruption of scholarly exercises in our colleges.
The Minister, specifically, has stayed proactive on issues influencing ASUU and truth be told, all the college-based laborers’ associations like the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), among others. He does likewise for different areas of the economy.
Notwithstanding his deft assuagement, flight laborers would have closed down the country’s whole space seven days before the ASUU strike. He should be empowered.
anything on the MOA.”
ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke in his discourse faulted the Federal Government for the continuous strike, charging that separated from not carrying out the 2020 MOA, the government additionally neglected to gather the ordinary execution observing gathering as concurred.
ASUU demanded that canceling the modern activity relied completely upon the Federal Government as individuals were resolved not to move ground until their requests are met.