The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has urged the Federal Government to show concrete evidence of commitment to agreements on
meeting its demands on its ongoing strike.
Biodun Ogunyemi, ASUU President, said in an interview with Newsmen in Abuja yesterday that the union would communicate its decision on offers made by the Government today.
Mr Ogunyemi, a professor, said contrary to some media reports, the union did not reject the offer made by the Federal Government or make fresh
demands.
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, after meeting with the union on Jan. 4 said government was about resolving the dispute with
the lecturers who embarked on strike on Nov. 5, 2018.
Mr Ngige said the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant- General of the Federation had provided evidence that N15.4 billion for the payment of salary shortfall in public universities.
He also noted that there was evidence that Mr President had approved N20 billion to offset the outstanding arrears of the 2009 and 2012, audit
verified earnings in the university system.
Mr Ngige, however, said the fund was being worked on and would be released to ASUU as soon as the process was complete, among other demands
of the union.
“We have been reviewing the offer made by the government and we have concluded our consultations with our members.
“We have concluded our consultations and hopefully by today we are going to transmit the feedback from our members to the Minister of Labour and Employment.
“What we said was that we are not insisting on having the total package.
“We are saying if government could give us one out of the five
tranches on the revitalisation fund it will be a kind of bending
backward in the interest of the students and national interest.
“So, rather than insisting that government should release a total of
one trillion naira which we know is not feasible, government can, at
least, give one tranche that can be spread over four quarters,
starting with the first quarter now.
“This is the shift that the media are misinterpreting to mean a fresh
demand. There is no fresh demand on our list whether you are
talking of revitalisation or earned academic allowance, ‘’ Ogunyemi
said.
On the issue of earned academic allowances, he said government
had promised to release N20 billion and that the balance would be
spread over four instalments but without stating timelines.
Mr Ogunyemi said members of the union were insisting on having
timelines for the payments.
“Our members are also saying government had also promised to
mainstream and that promise is not new, it was a promise of 2017.
“Our members have also noted that government had promised that
the earned academic allowance will be paid within the mainstream
budget which they also promised to do in 2018, yet they did not do it
“Our members are saying if you are promising again in 2019, let us
see the evidence, which is clear enough,” he said.
Mr Ogunyemi also said that members of the union were demanding
to see money of salary shortfall paid into their accounts although
they had seen the evidence of approval on paper.
He said the members of the union were demanding for concrete
evidence on all outstanding areas that involved payments.
“Our members are saying let us see concrete evidence that
government has paid not that government will be promising that it
will do this and will do that.
“We did that with the N20 billion in 2017, government promised to
release N20 billion in two instalments for September and October,
2017, that never happened until we went on strike in 2018.
“So, our members are saying, let’s go beyond writing anything on
paper.
“Like I said earlier, on the issue of revitalisation, our members are
saying we should not stop at tokenism,” he said.
Mr Ogunyemi said that ASUU had shown a lot of commitment and
called on the government to commit itself by paying one year’s
tranche.
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