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Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has said he is not against the renegotiation of agreement with Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
He, however, clarified that some of the issues in the ASUU and Federal Government agreements were beyond him, saying he was neither the minister of finance nor minister of education but a conciliator.
Ngige stated this in Abuja when he received members of the government side of the 2009 Federal Government/university based unions agreement re-negotiation committee led by its Chairman, Prof. Nimi Briggs.
The ministry’s spokesperson, Patience Onuobia, in a statement, yesterday, quoted Ngige as saying he has been pushing to see that everything contained in the 2020 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the government and ASSU was implemented.
He, however, lamented the attitude of that the ‘bosses’ at the Federal Ministry of Education, who do not feel the ongoing university strike like him whose kids attend public universities in Nigeria.
Ngige, however, appealed to the striking lecturers to reconsider their action and opt for picketing to press home their demands.
“As a conciliator, I have to make use of the labour instruments at my disposal. There are things that are above me. I am not Minister of Education. I cannot go to the education minister and dictate to him how to run his place. But I told ASUU that you should be bombarding them at the Federal Ministry of Education for this to be moved forward. There are many ways to do so. If you go to the labour act, there is something called picketing. You can picket. Strike is an ultimate thing. Picketing means that you can stay at the corridor, clapping or singing. Workers are permitted to do so. But I am tired that every time that there is a disagreement, it is strike.
The bosses in the Federal Ministry of Education don’t feel the strike. It is the children and some of us that have our children in public schools. I have my children in public universities. Three have graduated in medicine from Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Awka in 2020, University of Lagos LUTH College of Medicine in October 2021 and UniAbuja in December 2021. Others are still there, including those on my foundation’s scholarship and sponsorship. So, I am a parent, I feel it. I didn’t send my children to Igbinedion or Afe Babalola or Cambridge…If anybody should be interested in welfare of workers in Nigerian universities, I am number one. I told my colleagues that what university professors showed us here as their salaries is unacceptable. So, why won’t I support ASUU and their unions now on the renegotiation of their conditions of service, which is the main thing in the proposal by previous Manzali?”
Prof. Briggs who is also the Pro-Chancellor of Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndifu Alike, Ebonyi State, said the renegotiation committee was consulting all stakeholders with a view to finding a lasting solution to issues in dispute.
