EDUCATION Minister, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa'i and the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie have assured that efforts were being made to reach an amicable agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to avert further strikes.
In separate interviews with The Guardian at the ongoing 36th session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), holding in Paris, France, Rufa'i affirmed that the Federal Government was prepared to honour the agreement it signed with ASUU.
She said: "Even though this administration was not the one that signed the agreement with ASUU, we are prepared to abide by it." But she explained that there were critical areas of the agreement which both parties were deliberating on, with the aim of reaching an amicable solution.
Her words: "We are now studying the agreement and we have agreed with them (ASUU) that after November 22, three weeks from now, both parties will meet to review what has been done and then decide what we will do afterwards."
Rufa'i regretted that some of the demands of ASUU in respect of retirement age, "earn and other allowances" and pension were issues that should have been resolved by the universities themselves. She revealed that government had already opened discussions with the various vice chancellors to see what could be accommodated immediately.
On the retirement age, which ASUU wants moved up from 65 to 70 years, Rufa'i assured that the bill in this respect had been sent to the National Assembly, "and the legislators have shown their willingness to expedite action on it."
On the "earn and other allowances", the minister also averred that it was only during the last meeting her team had with ASUU, that a specific figure was arrived at on what it would cost to pay the allowances. She stated: "So, what had happened before now was that, even if the government had money to give, nobody could say specifically how much was needed to be paid for these allowances. And that was a major setback. But we have now realised that the "earn allowances" will cost a lot of money. Now, when I asked those that signed the agreement (with ASUU) about it, I was told that the money was to be paid from the Internally Generated Revenues (IGRs) accounts of the individual universities. And that is where we are having the problem, because if the money is to come from the IGRs, then the Federal Government has little to do with it. And unfortunately, no university can afford to pay the earn allowances from its IGRs. Yet, there are other allowances. So, what we are discussing with ASUU is that, we need to determine what each university can afford to pay, before we can approach the Federal Government for the balance. And this may take some time. I am part of ASUU, so I cannot block what my colleagues are entitled to. We don't want a strike."
Corroborating the minister, Okojie revealed that in the interim, universities had been told to appoint capable professors, who had reached the retirement age on contract basis, so that such appointments could be normalized once the new bill becomes law. But Okojie regretted that many vice chancellors were yet to implement the directive.
Explaining the delay behind the retirement age bill, Okojie revealed that the Federal Government had initially sent the bill to the National Assembly, but that "somebody" introduced another dimension which tended to give the impression that all tertiary institutions had professors.
The Guardian