ASUU, FG Decides To End Strike Today

There is optimism among stakeholders in the education sector that the on-going strike action by the Accademic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)may end today. This optimism may however be misplaced if the two parties to the dispute remain belligerent. This is because the two sore issues of earned allowance and funding of universities is yet to be agreed upon by the union and the Federal Government....
According to the National President of ASUU, Dr. Nassir Fagge, today’s meeting, which is an inaugural meeting with the NEEDS Assesement Implementation Committee will determine if the strike action will be called off.

“At the end of last week’ s meeting, we agreed that both parties return to their principals for further instruction. This is because the Federal Government’s side was insisting that we renegotiate the 1999 agreement while ASUU is of the opinion that there is a need to first implement before we start talking of renegotiating an agreement.

Dr. Fagge informed Education Tribune that the issue of the Earned Allowance is just one of the contentious issues which the Federal team wants renegotiated. He assured that the concern of the Union is to tie all lose ends such that there will be no need to raise again such issues as led to the 1999 agreement but that the Union is concerned that since there was an agreement which the government freely entered into, they should be honourable to first implement same before calling for renegotiation instead of saying it cannot be implemented. While the Federal Government insisted that earned allowance should be paid to only deserving lecturers who have worked for it, the ASUU leadership said the payment must be across board for all lecturers.

The position of the federal government has been that those who merited the earned allowance by dint of hard work should enjoy the money. It was gathered that the ASUU leadership who felt betrayed became infuriated with this position of the government.

The Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i had disclosed that most of the demands of ASUU have been met by the government. This includes improved funding to university education as well as special high impact intervention by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).

Acting Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Mallam Aliyu Nai’ya, had recently disclosed that TETFund high impact intervention projects, have been specially targeted at progressively upgrading of tertiary institutions, enhance development of institutions as centers of excellence in diverse subject areas, N84.4 billion has been allocated in Phases 1-4 between 2009-2012.