IT seems an end to the prolonged strike embarked upon by the Academic
Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may be called off as the body and
the Federal Government have come to a reasonable agreement.
Rising
from a three-hour closed-door meeting held at the office of the
Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Friday, both parties
achieved reasonable success in the negotiation as all issues except two
were agreed on.
The Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF),
Anyim Pius Anyim was at the head of the FG team along with the
Education and Labour Ministers while ASUU’s team was led by its
President, Dr Nasir Isa Fagge.
Briefing journalists afterwards,
the Chairman, University Needs Implementation Committee, Gabriel Suswam
said, “we agreed on all major issues except the issues of funding of the
Universities or rather intervention and then the allowance of the
University Lecturers. We believe that by next week the other issues
would be resolved. Then, ASUU would probably call off the strike.”
The Benue State Governor added that the SGF is meeting on the issue of
earn allowance on Monday while his committee, which is dealing with the
Needs assessment implementation, would be meeting on Thursday to assess
all the infrastructural deficits in the Universities.
“We are
involving all the agencies that fund the universities - the CBN and all
others. As soon as the two issues are resolved, we believe that the
strike would be called off.
“The issues of retirement age,
setting up a pension administrator, setting up of budget monitoring
unit, persuading companies to set up research centres, among others,
have being agreed on,” Suswam said.
“We agreed that all the funding agencies would meet on Thursday and we chart a way forward,” he noted.
Although the Chairman of ASUU refused to speak to the press in an
obvious show of dissatisfaction, a source within ASUU said they did not
expect the Federal Government to bring all the cards on the table at
once so they are still keeping their fingers crossed for next week when
their demands would be exhaustively tackled. “For now, the strike
continues indefinitely,” the source said.
Earlier, in a bid to
put up appropriate conditions necessary for academics in all tertiary
institutions in Nigeria, the Federal Government has inaugurated the
Universities Needs Implementation Committee, with a mandate to
prioritise requisite exigencies.
At the inauguration yesterday in
Abuja, the SGF, Anyim Pius Anyim said the major needs of all Federal
Universities where identified by an assessment committee earlier set up
to assess and prioritise the needs of universities.”
He said
the report submitted by the Needs assessment Committee mandates the
inaugurated Committee to “interface with all agencies providing funding
support to the universities with the aim of appropriately channeling
support to identified priorities.”
“Simulate private sector
investment into the public universities, monitor progress of the
projects implementation and produce quarterly report for submission to
the federal government and, intervention in any other matter that may be
necessary to achieve the purpose of the Needs Assessment,” he added.
This mandate stemmed from the observations earlier carried out, which
noted that various countries fund tertiary institutions through varying
approaches, some through budgetary allocations, non-budgetary
interventions or private sector donations.
It would be recalled
that the Federal Government set up the Need Assessment Committee to
revitalise the physical infrastructure in the universities, with the aim
of enhancing the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) base of the
universities.
Late Miss Florence Ngwu
