We’re Not In Disagreement With ASUU – FG

The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, has said that the Federal Government is not in disagreement with anything the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said or requested for over the years.

He stated that there was no basis for disagreement between both parties.

Nwajiuba said this at an event held at the National Universities Commission (NUC) Auditorium in Abuja on Tuesday.

“I’ve often said everything ASUU is saying or has said over the years, we are not in disagreement on anything. There’s no basis for disagreement at all,” he told journalists after the event.

The event was organized for the presentation of the 2021 Presidential Visitation Panel Reports to Federal Universities, Inter-University Centres, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education.

Owing to the long amount of time (10 years) between the last visitation to tertiary institutions, the panels conducted their visits to cover two five-year periods, 2011-2015 and 2016-2020.

Nwajiuba said the establishment of the visitation panels is a fulfillment of one of ASUU’s demands.

“This visitation panel was one of the things they asked for and we’ve fulfilled it. This visitation hasn’t been conducted in 10 years so this is actually for two different visitations”, he said.

According to him, the Federal Government is still engaged in discussions with ASUU.

“ASUU is a respected organization of the country and we are engaged in all discussions with them, we are discussing everything”, he said.

Nwajiuba’s statement however contradicts ASUU President’s recent claim that the FG no longer responds to their calls and that the union had stopped reaching out to the government.

“The government has refused to reach out to us. Government officials have stopped. In fact, they don’t take our calls again. Nigerians should tell the government to do what they agreed to do,” The Punch had quoted Emmanuel Osodeke to have said.

The union had threatened to embark on a fresh strike at the end of the month of August (today).

“We signed an agreement and even in May, we reached a final agreement; this is August and nothing has been implemented. Does it make any sense? We are giving them till the end of August and after that, we start the procedures,” Osodeke had said.

Meanwhile, in his earlier remarks as the representative of the Minister of Education, Nwajiuba said the purpose of the panels was to review the performance of the institutions in areas such as governance, standard, management of finances and quality assurance.

He said other basis of review are the relationship between management on one hand, and staff and students on the other, as well as the assessment of the conditions of physical infrastructure and the quality of instruction as well as instructional facilities.

He said the panels will then advise the government accordingly.

“The White Paper that will be drawn from the recommendations of the reports will address the challenges thus identified in our tertiary institutions in the past years.

“It is hoped to mitigate the incessant friction between the Staff Unions of these institutions and government, and result in the much-desired industrial harmony”, he said.

He also announced that in the course of the visitations, two chairmen of different visitation panels lost their lives.

“Prof Abiodun O. Olotuah, Chairman of the Visitation Panel to Federal Polytechnic, Oko paid the ultimate price in the course of this clarion call to duty for his fatherland.

“The Chairman of the Panel to Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Prof. David I. Ker also passed on a few days ago”, he said.

Finally, the minister assured the nation that attention will be paid to implementation of the recommendations.

“I want to assure the nation that the government will give accelerated attention to the implementation of the White Paper that will be produced from these reports”, he said.

Speaking later on how soon the recommendations presented by the different panels would be implemented, Nwajiuba said a committee would be set up.

“We’ve just received the recommendations today, so we will set up a committee on this white paper, so that the white paper committee can then release a step by step approach to implementation”, he said.