ASUU strike: FG to meet varsity council,VCs

The Federal Government will before
Sunday meet with university councils and
vice-chancellors to update them on some
of the decisions it had reached in its bid to
end the ongoing strike by the Academic
Staff Union of Universities.
The Chairman of the National Economic
Empowerment Development Strategy
Assessment Implementation Committee of
the universities, Governor Gabriel Suswam,
made this known on Tuesday after
President Goodluck Jonathan met behind
closed doors with key officials of his
administration over the almost two
months' old strike.
The officials included Vice-President
Namadi Sambo; the Secretary to the
Government of the Federation, Senator Pius
Anyim;
the Chief of Staff to the President,
Chief Mike Oghiadome; the Minister of
Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; the
Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqqayat
Rufa'i; and the Minister of Labour, Chief
Emeka Wogu.
ASUU, however, said shortly after the
meeting ended that the strike would not be
called off because the Federal Government
was not sincere in its efforts to end the
dispute.
It was learnt that the Tuesday meeting
afforded the government officials taking
part in the negotiations with the striking
university teachers the opportunity to
brief the President on the latest
development.
Suswam, who is also the governor of
Benue State, told State House
correspondents after the meeting that
substantial progress had been made in the
negotiations.
He expressed the hope that the strike
would be called off soon based on some of
the mechanisms that had been put in place
to move university education forward.
The governor said while the issues
surrounding the NEEDS assessment had
been concluded to some extent, those
bordering on the earned allowance
component being handled by the SGF were
pending.
Suswam said, "As you must have heard, the
Federal
Government made an offer of
N30bn to assist the various councils of our
universities to be able to pay the earned
allowances.
"There is also N100bn and that is why the
Minister of Finance, the SGF, the ministers
of education and labour as well as the Chief
of
Staff, the VP and myself have just risen
from a meeting to take some decisions that
would end the strike soon. The President
has instructed us on what to do and he has
shown a lot of commitments by starting a
project worth about N100bn in all the
universities in about 61 universities in the
country.
"So we are hoping that we will be able to
see the end of the strike very soon if at the
end of the day, ASUU is satisfied with the
measures that we have so far taken .
"The Federal Government will also be
meeting with the university councils and
vice-chancellors of our universities within
the week towards updating them on some
of the decisions taken."
The governor added that the meeting with
the varsity councils was necessary because
earned
allowances had to be certified by
the management and councils of the
universities.
He said since the Federal Government had
offered to assist the councils with N30bn, it
was
important for them to go and verify
and pay the people who are actually
entitled to the allowances.
"I think that the government had
demonstrated some substantial faith . Yes,
if ASUU said that this is the amount of
money that the Federal Government is
owing them and the government has
shifted ground from its initial posture, it
means we are moving forward. With a
N100bn available now for addressing the
physical infrastructure deficit in our
universities, I think the Federal
Government has done quite well to have
moved to where we are today," he added.
But ASUU has said after the meeting which
held in Jonathan's office in the Presidential
Villa, that the Federal Government was only
using propaganda to curry public support
rather than facing the issues raised by it.
A member of the National Executive Council
of ASUU, Dr. Nasir Adesola, told one of our
correspondents on the telephone that
theN30bn offered to the striking lecturers
as earned allowances was even worse than
"where
we were before the deadlocked
meeting on Monday."
The government, he said, had not shown
enough commitment towards the
settlement of the conflict.
According to him, the government only
offered N30bn without saying anything on
when the balance of the earned
allowances
would be paid.
He also said that the declaration by the
government that it had approved N100bn
for the development of infrastructure in
the universities was a mere propaganda.
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress
has asked the government to honour its
agreement with ASUU in order to end the
strike which began on July 1.
The APC, in a statement on Tuesday by its
Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji
Lai Mohammed, said ASUU's demand for
N87bn was not open to government's
negotiation.
The statement reads, ''The N87bn that
ASUU is demanding represents earned
allowances hence cannot be renegotiated.
"In any case, this amount pales into
insignificance when placed side by side the
N1tr
that has been spent on federal
legislators in the past eight years; or the
frivolity involved in a government minister
travelling to China to negotiate a $1bn loan
in a chartered jet (with its attendant costs)
and with a retinue of officials who earned
generous estacode in hard currency."
It said ASUU was not making any fresh
demand beyond the agreement it reached
with the government in 2009.
"Agreements are meant to be honoured,
and breaching them comes with some
consequences," the statement added.

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