ASUU Strike May No Longer Hold As Gbajabiamila Intervenes
Reports gathered on Thursday indicate that the planned strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may no longer as a result of the intervention of the House of Representatives’ Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila. Information Guide Nigeria
According to INDEPENDENT, it was resolved at a meeting with the speaker of the House of Representatives, that the N30 billion revitalisation fund should be released to the universities within the next one week.
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Live, Study and Work in Canada. No Payment is Required! Hurry Now click here to Apply >> Immigrate to CanadaIt was also agreed that the N22.1 billion earned academic allowances should be paid also within the next one week.
INDEPENDENT reports that the meeting was attended by members of the national leadership of the Union including past presidents of the ASUU led by the current president, Prof. Victor Emmanuel Osodeke; Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba; Chairman of the House Committee on Tertiary Education; Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Hajia Zainab Ahmed; Comrade Aminu Suleiman. and his Basic Education counterpart, Prof. Julius Ihonvbare.
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According to INDEPENDENT, Gbajabiamila said, “That money was to be paid in January. This is November and we are yet to see the money 11 months after and the meeting which was to be set up to work out the payment plan of the balance of N190 billion has not been set up.”
ONN the issue of earned academic allowance of the lecturers, Gbajabiamila stated, “The Ministry of Finance is not supposed to discuss sharing formula of earned academic allowance because it belongs to us. It was earned and it is only for our members. So, the issue of sharing does not even arise.
“The normal procedure is that for every one academic staff, you have one none academic staff. But in several universities, the reverse is the case. For example, in University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, the average academic staff is 3000. But they have close to 8,000 non-academic staff.
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“National Salaries Incomes and Wages Commission has removed most of our allowances in collaboration with IPPIS and I can tell you that we have some of our members that have not been paid for close to 17 months, while in their report, they admitted that some people got double payment. Jamb Result
“Another issue is that of proliferation of state universities. The states are creating more universities when they have not been able to fund the available ones. Abia has just created three and Delta State has also created three. We agreed that the NUC should up the standard of accreditation so that when you create one, you should be able to fund it.
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Live, Study and Work in Canada. No Payment is Required! Hurry Now click here to Apply >> Immigrate to Canada“Working with the NUC, we worked out the standard and a bill is to be prepared and sent to the National Assembly to up the standard for the establishment of universities,” ASUU said.
Speaking at the meeting, the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba revealed that the ministry agrees with the presentation of ASUU.
However, Emeka Nwajiuba emphasised that there was no need for the union to embark on another strike as the government is doing everything possible to implement the agreement.
Also speaking, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed said the ministry of finance only works on payment advice from the Ministry of Education.
Ahmed disclosed that the Ministry of Finance is currently working out the payment of an additional N10 billion in addition to the N20 billion which was released for the purpose of the revitalisation fund.
According to INDEPENDENT, Ahmed expressed shock that some lecturers were being owed salaries of up to 17 months.
Speaking on this, she said; “We only have information from about four universities and we are working on that already”.
Although she assured ASUU that all payments will be sorted out within the next one week, she stressed that the N22.1 billion earned allowance is part of the supplementary budget passed by the National Assembly and it includes the money for the health sector and payment of arrears of minimum wage.
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