Wednesday 4 September 2013

ASUU STRIKE: FG Claims It Met ‘Almost’ All Union’s Demands After Releasing Additional N30bn

The Federal Government on Tuesday, September
3, said it had met almost all the demands of the
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) after
releasing additional N30 billion to the striking
union. The lecturers, however, seem to be not
satisfied. Chairman of the National Economic Empowerment
Development Strategy (NEEDS) assessment
implementation committee for universities,
Gabriel Suswam, dislclosed the the funds, which
are the payment of lecturers’ allowances, would
be disbursed between various universities by that the Ministry of Education. While appealing to ASUU to end the strike,
Suswam frowned at the union’s claims that the
previous disbursement of N100 billion by the
government for infrastructures in the universities
was done without consultations. This is”N500 billion, not N100 billion” Last week, the ASUU leadership expressed
concerns that a clear procedure for assessing the
funds by the universities is yet to be defined. Nasir Fagge, ASUU President, had insisted that only
the provision of N500 billion would meet the
immediate needs of the universities. “We observe that the Committee is so far
mentioning only N100 billion. If the
implementation is to be related to the funding
requirements in the 2009 ASUU/FGN Agreement
and the January 2012 MoU, what is due for 2012
and 2013 is N500 billion, not N100 billion,” Fagge claimed. Suswam, however, said ASUU was carried along in
the entire process where N100 billion was agreed: “ASUU participated in all the meetings where it
was agreed to raise N100 billion, which has
already been distributed to all the universities.”
“In fact, the president of ASUU nominated one Dr.
Baffa, who is very resourceful. He did all the work,
and presented the criteria for distribution of the money which is based on the population of each
university,” he added. Suswam also said that after drawing up the draft,
the Committee sent the document to ASUU for
their perusal. “Instead, they wrote me a letter accusing the
committee of insincerity. The councils are the
ones that would verify what we are owing, go and
ask them, ASUU said no, that unless we put N92
billion on the table.” He addedthat governing councils, and not his
committee, would be responsible for awarding
contracts in the universities, adding that the
lecturers’ strike has assumed a political
dimension. It will be reminded that ASUU has been on a
indefinite strike nationwide since 1 July 2013. The
Union stated that the FG has not been following
the law that entered into force in 2009 that
guarantees a N12,500 monthly allowance to each
lecturer.

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