Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu
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The Federal Government said on Tuesday that it was renegotiating the 2009 agreements it signed with the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, who are currently on strike.
The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, stated this while answering questions from journalists after briefing members of the National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party on the activities of his ministry in Abuja.
The reason for the renegotiation, according to him, was to clear some grey areas in the agreements, which he said were put in place before the coming into office of the present government.
The nine-point agreements ASUU signed with the Federal government 2009 included funding requirements for revitalisation of the Nigerian universities; Federal government assistance to state universities; establishment of NUPEMCO and progressive increase in annual budgetary allocation to education to 26 per cent between 2009 and 2020; and earned allowances.
The minister, who refused to say whether there was a particular area of the agreements that was not acceptable to the government, however pleaded with the university lecturers to return to the classroom.
Wogu said, “We are renegotiating the 2009 agreement which predate this administration. It therefore has to be renegotiated.
“However, while we are still talking, we are pleading with ASUU to go back to their work.”
Meanwhile, Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu, has said lecturers of states and private universities should not join federal universities staff to embark on strike.
Aliyu said this in Minna on Tuesday when he received in audience members of the Governing board of the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, in Government House.
The governor argued that in a federation, what obtains at the Federal level should not necessarily affect states, especially if the demands of the aggrieved lecturers were not the same.
He said, “The union at the centre cannot ask people at the state to go on strike. State universities are like private universities; they cannot go on strike just because their colleagues at the federal universities are on strike.”
Aliyu said he discussed the first convocation of the university with the visitors and the ongoing strike by members of ASUU.
Also, ASUU has called on Executive Secretary of the National Universities commission, Prof. Julius Okojie, to publicly declare his assets.
In a joint statement by the chairmen of the University of Calabar branch of the union, Dr. James Okpiliya and his Cross River State University of Technology counterpart, Dr. Nsing Ogar, the ASUU officials accused the NUC boss of fueling the crisis in the university system.
They noted that instead of addressing the issues in dispute, Okojie rather resorted to campaign of calumny against the union.
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