NIGERIA’s Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, has promised Nigerians that the ongoing one-month warning strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which clocked one week, two days on Tuesday, will end before the one-month duration.
But ASUU has said the strike will continue as the government has failed to fully meet any of its demands as the parties enter into a meeting on Tuesday in Abuja.
Dr Ngige, who spoke on Tuesday at the resumed negotiation between the union and the representatives of the government, said the government was surprised by the lecturers’ decision to embark on strike despite the assurances by the government and the intervention of ‘stakeholders’ including the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC).
“I assure you, this meeting will be a fruitful one. We brought everybody to the discussion table. We have ‘apprehended’ the situation, all the disputes; and we expect that from the discussion that we will have today, ASUU will understand that the government does not mean any harm. And even if there were lapses, they are lapses that can be handled without resorting to industrial action,” the minister said.
National Record had reported on Monday a statement by the spokesperson of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr Charles Akpan, that the federal government had scheduled a meeting with ASUU for Tuesday in an effort to resolve the dispute.
Dr Ngige said he was in Botswana when the union embarked on the warning strike. According to him, the government will not allow a situation where “the grass suffers when two elephants fight.”
He added: “I sincerely thought ASUU and the Ministry of Education would have resolved the issues, which hopefully are not major areas of dispute, warranting industrial action. To my surprise, I came back, and the strike is still on. Be that as it may, it is the mandate of my ministry to apprehend industrial disputes wherever they occur and we have apprehended this.
“But I must tell you that on the government’s side, they were taken by surprise. NIREC met with you (ASUU) and reported to the President. Having met with you (ASUU) and having given the details of their meeting with you, we sincerely hoped we won’t again take this route of industrial action. So, the government side is taken by surprise – Ministries of Education, Finance and all are taken aback.”
The minister called on the government to fulfil the agreements it signed when he stated: “I also want the government as much as possible to be factual as far as this negotiation goes because there is nothing as bad as somebody agreeing to do something and put a timeline and that thing is not done. As a negotiator, it doesn’t strengthen my hand because I wear a double cap. I wear a cap of a reconciliator. I wear the cap of a minister of the government of the federation.”
But in response to the minister’s claim that most of the issues in contention had been addressed by the government, ASUU said none of its demands had been fully met by the government.
The union’s President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said several meetings with different agencies of government have also not yielded any positive result.
Prof. Osodeke said it had met with President Muhammadu Buhari, Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, and that despite the promise by them that the issues would be resolved, “yet nothing has come out of it.” He noted that during one of its meetings in October, the ministries of Education and Finance promised to set up a tripartite committee in two weeks but noted that nothing has been done.
According to him, Tuesday’s meeting was for “the union to see action”, asserting further that “This is not a MoA or MoU meeting. We have to see action”. He said NIREC had reached out to the union and conveyed its pleas directly to him in February.
“They (NIREC) actually met with the government on the 1st of February and they told us that the ministers of Labour, Education and the Chief of Staff were mandated to resolve the issue by the president.
“When you look at issues in this agreement, you will find out that none, not even one has been fully implemented as we agreed. And that is what led us to where we are.
“We are fully ready to discuss. The strike will not last for one month if the government doesn’t want it to last for one month.”
After the introductory session, the representatives of both the government and ASUU went into a closed-door meeting at the conference room of the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
In attendance at the meeting were representatives of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, officials from the Office of the Head of Service, Auditor General’s Office, Ministries of Education and Finance.
The meeting was yet to end as of press time.
