Union of Nigeria Universities, ASUU, may call off its
over four months old strike at its meeting on
Wednesday night. P.M.NEWS investigations this morning indicated that
ASUU may have no need to continue with the strike
as its various chapters voted in favour of its
suspension at their congresses yesterday based on
the new offer made to the University teachers last
Monday by the Federal Government team led by President Goodluck Jonathan. Sheviinfo gathered that at least 20 ASUU chapters,
including Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; Uthman
Dan Fodio University, Sokoto; Federal University of
Technology Minna; and that of University of Lagos,
Ladoke Akintola University, Lagos State University
and Delta State University have agreed to support the suspension of the strike. The other chapters of ASUU that have voted to
support the suspension of the strike, according to
information available to sheviinfo include that of
University of Calabar, Federal University of
Technology Akure, and Ekiti State University. Investigations revelaed that only University of
Benin and University of Jos have not backed the
suspension of the strike as at the time of writing
this story. It was gathered that though some
members of the ASUU at the chapters that have
voted for an end to the strike were skeptical about the offer of government, they are however
concerned about the increasing tide of public
opinion against the strike. Also, some members of the union are giving
conditions that must be fulfilled by governmet
before the strike is called off. Executives of ASUU at
various chapters, it was gathered, promised to
transmit the conditions to the National Executive for
consideration as they meet on Wednesday in Kano to consider whether to call off the strike. ASUU had called a national strike in July over the
failure of government to implement the October
2009 agreement signed between a Federal
Government team led by the then Pro-Chancellor,
University of Ibadan, Dr. Gamaliel O. Onosode, and
the university teachers' team led by the then President of ASUU, Dr. Abdullahi Sule-Kano. The agreement sets out in detailed manner issues
such as the breakdown of lecturers' salary
s tructure, staff loans, pension, overtime, and
moderation of examinations. It was agreed that
entitled academic staff shall be paid earned
allowances at the rates undertaking in the listed assignments. The negotiating parties also agreed that Decree 11
of 1993 and the Pension Reform Act (2004) should
be amended to increase the retirement age of
academics from 65 years to 70 years for those in
the Professorial cadre and to also remove certain
ambiguities from the provisions that allowed Professors to retire with full benefits, by
reformulating these provisions (Pension Reform
Act, 2004). The parties agreed that Agreement will come into
force on 1 July, 2009 while the effective date for the
70 years retirement age for academics in the
Professorial cadre was notionally fixed at 1
January, 2009. On funding of the universities, both parties agreed
that each federal university should get at least N1.5
trillion between 2009 and 2011. Federal Government had always insisted that it had
implemented most of the provisions of the
agreement, a claim ASUU had always faulted. The
two most contentious aspect of the agreement
which led to the on going strike relates to the N1.5
trillion agreed funding for the university and the payment of the earned allowances. ASUU is demanding the transfer of N1.5 trillion
funding which government should have paid since
2009 to federal universities and another N92 billion
as earned allowances of its members as contained
in the 2009 agreement. Government has insisted
that it has no funds to meet the monetary demands in view of the current financial challenges it is
confronting. At last week's meeting the federal government
made a new offer of a yearly payment of N220
billion over the next five years in furtherance of the
contentious implementation of the 2009
Agreement during the over 13 hours meeting. This
will amount to the N1.1trillion at the end of five years. It was also agreed that the funds will be domiciled
at the Central Bank of Nigeria to be released on a
quarterly basis to the higher institutions as a further
assurance that government will keep to its side of
the bargain. However, government will only release
N100 billion it had earlier offered to ASUU for 2013.
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