ASUU, Reps waiting on Buhari for final decision on public varsity teachers’ strike

House of Representatives and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) are waiting on President Muhammadu Buhari for a final decision on the seven-month long industrial action embarked upon by lecturers  in the public university.

This is as both bodies have already committed to a resolution to call off the strike action following agreement reached during a meeting brokered by the Reps with teachers and government functionaries, last Monday, with the recommendations from it contained in a report submitted to President Buhari by the House of Representatives Speaker, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, the following day, Tuesday.

Already, ASUU has announced via its verified Twitter handle that it is looking at Monday, October 17 as date to formally resume work, even as Speaker Gbajabiamila, expressed the expectation that Buhari’s decision should have come by last Tuesday, October 11 on the strength of positive assurances received from the country’s leader.

It would be recalled that Gbajabiamila had last Tuesday, October 4 disclosed that President Buhari accepted the report of the lawmakers’ engagement with the striking lecturers.

The report proffers solutions on how to resolve the ongoing industrial action embarked upon by the union since February 14, this year.

Gbajabiamila said this when he led a delegation of principal officers of the House of Representatives to the Presidential Villa immediately after last Tuesday’s plenary.

“Mr President, as usual, had a very good listening ear, he took the report of the House, accepted it. We discussed at length, the details of the report and he wanted to go through them himself. We have another meeting between our good selves and Mr President for his final decision. We had a good engagement, with a very positive response,” said the Speaker.

According to Gbajabiamila, the intervention by the Reps was fruitful, adding that the meeting with the President was also far reaching, with Buhari’s decision to be made known to the union and the public from October 11.

The Speaker assured that the leadership of the House was able to ensure that all the demands of ASUU in terms of revitalisation, salaries among others have been provided for in the 2023 budget, adding that N470 billion had been included in the 2023 budget to accommodate ASUU’s demand.

“The issue of UTAs has been resolved as both the government and ASUU have agreed and both will sit to agree to include all the peculiarities required by ASUU on the IPPIS payment platform.

“I believe we have covered ground, and it’s basically what we have agreed on. ASUU would have call off the strike today and hopefully in the next couple of days.

“There is probability that the strike will be called off we thank ASUU for responding at every moment we have called them. We have met in my office and it was positive. We did this for the sake of our students,” he said.

To accommodate ASUU demands, it is believed that the decision by the Reps to place some parastatals of government on cost of collection may have been informed by the need to free up funds for the purpose of addressing the lecturers/government impasse.

Last Tuesday, October 4, the House of Representatives adopted recommendations of its Ad-hoc Committee on Finance for the placement of 10 agencies of government on cost of collection status.

Deputy Chairman of the Committee, Mr Saidu Abdullahi said the committee observed that some revenue generating agencies do not abide by the Finance Act on remittances.

According to him, “the 10 agencies are self-funding.”

Abdullahi explained that “they would be allowed to keep four percent of their Internally Generated Revenue to fund their operations and remit the rest.”

“Ten (10) out of the 63 Government Owned Enterprises. GOEs be placed on the cost of collections with immediate effect, just like FIRS, CUSTOMS, to serve as a test case for other GOEs which can be added in the future the list of this GOEs includes; NCC, CAC, NPA, NIMASA, NUPRC, NMPDRA, JAMB, NAFDAC; the proposed 2023 Finance Bill makes amendments of the existing Act and include the above-mentioned agencies,” he said.

That position was also taken by Upper Chamber, as the senate, last Wednesday, also has okayed the removal of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), and 8 other Government-owned Enterprises (GoEs) from 2023 national budget, as part of deliberations on the recently-presented 2023 national budget.

The decision of the Senate was sequel to the report of the MTEF/FSP submitted by the Senate Committee on Finance, chaired by Senator Adeola Olamilekan, which was considered on Wednesday.

The affected agencies are: Federal Inland Revenue Service, (FIRS), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).

Others include Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMPDRA) and Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

According to the report: “That 10 out of the 63 GOEs be placed on cost of collections to serve as a test case for other GOEs which can be added in the future. The list of these GOEs include , NCC, CAC, NPA, NIMASA, NUPRC, FIRS, CUSTOMS, NMPDRA, JAMB, NAFDAC, with immediate effect with the proposed finance bill 2023 coming up with the amendment of the existing Act of the above mentioned agencies.”

For the lawmakers, ASUU demands have been accommodated in the 2023 budget, as it paves way for the Federal Government to clear the final hurdles stalling resolution in the seven-month long industrial action by the public universities’ teachers in the country.

Buhari had earlier warned against reaching any agreement with the striking ASUU which may have financial implications on the government, as according to him, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige and his counterpart at the education ministry, Adamau Adamu should be wary of committing to agreements deemed not to be implementable.

Meanwhile, ASUU has disclosed that it plans to resume work next Monday, October 17, barring any hitches by way of further stalling in the final decision by government to accept the Reps report.

Posting via its verified Twitter handle (@ASUU_NG), Tuesday, the union wrote: “BREAKING NEWS Universities to Reopen 17th October 2022 as Federal Govt Agrees To Pay The Outstanding 8 Months’ Salaries. (1/2) #ASUUstrike #AsuuStrikeUpdate.

“Revitalization and salary areas have been cleared. Although the issue of UTAS is not finalized, for now, ASUU members have agreed to resume October 17th.”

ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, had assured that the union would soon call off its seven months old strike.

Osodeke who was speaking at a meeting with the leadership of the House of Representatives on Monday in Abuja, said from what the union had seen at the meeting there is light at the end of the tunnels, adding that this time around it hoped that there would not be any persons or group to create issues that would make the union run into any hitch.

He said that it hoped the intervention by the leadership of the House would be the final for the sake of the students, adding that ASUU’s struggle was for the educational system in Nigeria and the university system.

According to him, we hope that in the next few days we will put an end to this strike. We want to have a system where the remuneration is enough to attract lecturers all over the world.

He said that Nigerian universities should also be paid in hard currencies by attracting foreign students, while expressing worry over some good lecturers that were leaving the country.

”We are the giant of Africa and we must live by that. We thank the speaker for this intervention and we must work together so that every Nigerian will be proud of the universities we have,” Osodeke said.

According to him, the seven-month-old strike should not have gone beyond two weeks if the National Assembly had intervened before now.

ASUU had, on Monday, February 14, 2022, embarked on a strike over what the Union described as the failure of the government to meet its lingering demands.

Minister Ngige, after what he described as ‘failed negotiations,’ dragged the striking lecturers to the National Industrial Court.

The National Industrial Court had on September 21 ordered ASUU to call off the strike.

The court granted the motion on notice filed by the Federal Government directing the lecturers to return to classrooms.

Ruling on the interlocutory injunction, the trial judge, Polycarp Hamman, restrained ASUU from continuing with the industrial action pending the determination of the suit filed against it by the Federal Government.

Displeased by the ruling, the Union headed to the Appellate Court to appeal the ruling.

It also filed a stay of execution of the ruling of the Industrial Court.

The Court of Appeal ordered the striking lecturers to ‘immediately’ call off the strike as condition to entertain the union’s appeal, even as it agreed that it was within ASUU’s right to appeal the decision of the Industrial Court.