Half Salary: Fresh Strike Looms As ASUU NEC Meets Monday – Newstrends
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Half Salary: Fresh Strike Looms As ASUU NEC Meets Monday

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1 year ago

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Members of the National Executive Council of the Academic Staff Union of Universities will on Monday hold a crucial meeting to decide on whether to go on a fresh strike or not, Daily Trust can confirm.

The decision to convene the emergency NEC meeting, which is to be held at the ASUU National Secretariat on the University of Abuja campus, is coming on the heels of October salary cut received by members of the union.

A NEC member, who does not want his name in print, told our correspondent that members of the union across all the branches were disappointed about the action of Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige.

The official said their members had it on good authority that it was the minister who wrote to the necessary quarters, directing them not to fully pay October salary to lecturers.

“I can confirm that, ASUU NEC will meet on Monday, November 7, to take a decision on strike action or not. This is an aftermath of half-salary paid by the Nigerian govt.

“Branches say they are disappointed in the FG. The union should have a decision on the same day,” he told Daily Trust on the phone.

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President of the union, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke could not be reached for comments as at when filing this report.

ASUU had called off an eight-month strike on October 14, following court rulings and the intervention of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila.

Another NEC member said the most “worrisome” part of the whole thing was the payment of salary backlogs to medical lecturers in the universities while other teachers in other discipline were neglected.

In reaction via a statement issued on Saturday, Ngige dismissed ASUU members’ allegations on selective treatment.

He described the allegation as grossly “inaccurate, misleading and barefaced distortion of facts”, pointing out that members of ASUU were paid their October salary pro-rata, and not half salary.

He said the pro-rata was done because they cannot be paid for work not done.

The minister maintained that he never directed the Accountant-General of the Federation to pay the university lecturers half salary.

“Following the ruling of the Court of Appeal, which upheld the order of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), asking ASUU to go back to work, the leadership of the union wrote to the Minister, informing him that they have suspended the strike.

“The Federal Ministry of Education wrote to him in a similar vein and our labour inspectors in various states also confirmed that they have resumed work.

“So, the minister wrote to the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning, directing that their salaries should be restored.

“They were paid in pro-rata to the number of days that they worked in October, counting from the day that they suspended their industrial action. Pro-rata was done because you cannot pay them for work not done. Everybody’s hands are tied,” he said.

The minister equally faulted a statement by the Chairperson of ASUU, Usman Danfodiyo University Sokoto (UDUS) branch, Muhammad N. Al-Mustapha, accusing him of biased payment of salaries to selected professional members of the union.

He added, “Those obviously being referred to by the UDUS ASUU chairperson were members of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association (MDCAN) who abstained from the eight-month strike of ASUU because they abhorred the incessant strikes by the union and its grave effects on medical education in Nigeria and production of more medical doctors.

“Accusing the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, of biased payment of salaries to selected professional members of ASUU is a barefaced distortion of facts. Mustapha said he received information that a segment of the staff in the College of Health Sciences (CHS) has been paid seven months of their withheld salaries from March to September, due to a letter written to the Minister of Finance, instructing the exemption of the under-listed staff on the application of ‘No Work, No Pay’ rule

“To set the records straight, the medical lecturers who are being referred to by the Chairperson of ASUU UDUS branch, abstained from the eight-month strike of ASUU. This has been corroborated in a press statement by the Chairman, MDCAN UdUS, Dr B. Jubrin and Secretary, Dr I. G Ango, on Friday, November 4, 2022.”

Daily Trust

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FG threatens to stop funding tertiary institutions with poor performance

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16 hours ago

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May 4, 2024

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Professor Tahir Mamman, Minister of Education

FG threatens to stop funding tertiary institutions with poor performance

The federal government has said the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) will defund any non-performing centre of excellence it established eight years ago.

Professor Tahir Mamman, the Minister of Education, said the government will not continue to reward indolence by giving free money to institutions that are not doing what they are supposed to do.

The minister spoke while receiving two reports of TETFund’s ad hoc committees on Assessment/Review of TETFund Centres of Excellence and Operationalisation of Skills Development Special Intervention.

“The government is encouraging our scholars to simply rise to the occasion and deliver on their scholarship, what world class scholars do; and we are not going to reward indolence. We can’t be giving free money to institutions that are not doing what they are supposed to do.

“In terms of the skill, we want to raise the equipment level of those institutions, polytechnic and others so that they can provide all the skill set that we need in Nigeria in the highest quality that can service the country and internationally,” he said.

On his part, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Arc Sonny Echono, said the fund will not continue to throw money away to centres that are not living up to expectations.

Echono disclosed that some centres have funds with TETFund that they have not accessed since inception.

“The funds are with us because we have not released until you reach a milestone, but while they have delayed in reaching those milestones, are causes of concerns.

The TETFund boss noted that the strategy for establishing centres of excellence was a very good one because TETFund realised that it didn’t have enough resources to improve all the facilities of all public institutions at the same time.

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“The idea was to incubate, to have one centre, the right equipment, the right tools, the right faculty and experts, that would lead our efforts in research, in promoting scholarship at the highest level so that they can also inspire other centres.

“We are going to be pooling from other institutions within the area who want to do further research or who want to carry out any other exploratory study in those particular fields in those areas,” he said.

He said some of the centres have done fantastically well since inception, stating that a lot of them are doing innovations.

“Sokoto just came up with one major solution for us. For example, they were the ones that discovered this vaccine for Covid, in partnership with other institutions. Now we are also in the process of getting vaccines for Lassa fever and so many others.

“So, some are doing very well. And some have come up with prototypes that we now hoping to take to industries so that they begin to produce these goods and services,” he said.

On the non-performing institutions, he said, “If you were established five years ago and you are still at your infancy, you have not been able to provide modern laboratories, facilities for scholars to come and learn, we want to know why. But we don’t want to be arbitrary.

“So, it decided to look at some institutions to find out their relative positions in terms of the quality of their faculty, their reputation in certain courses and in certain areas and designated them as centres of excellence for those particular courses.

Earlier, the Committee on the Assessment/Review of TETFund Centres of Excellence, led by Prof Oyewale Tomori, in its report, decline to recommend any centre for upgrade

The report noted that most centres did not utilise their first seed grant of N150 million for the initial infrastructures required in the centres, and advised TETFund to provide some bail out funds to the centres to enable the proper take off of the centres.

The committee also called on the fund to ensure that all funds for the Centre of Excellence are disbursed directly to the Centre of excellence account.
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“If the Centres are to achieve set objectives, TETFund in collaboration with institutions hosting the centres should ensure that Centre Directors are on full time assignment at the Centre.

“All Centres that are not performing well should be given six months moratorium as a way to prevail on them to refocus and achieve their true mandate after which a revisit will be conducted to determine their status and continue funding,” the committee recommended.

Also presenting the Report of the Advisory Committee on Operationalisation of TETFund Skills Development Special Intervention, the Chairman of the Committee, Dr. Nuru Yakubu, said the committee recommended polytechnics for TETFund Special Intervention according to zones.

“South-West: The five schools visited have shown preparedness except for the Polytechnic Ibadan because of the school leadership transition. It is therefore recommended that in 2024 the following two polytechnics should benefit; Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State and Federal Polytechnic, Ede, Osun State for 2025 the committee recommends Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State and The Polytechnic Ibadan, if they can sort out their preparations.

“South-South: The committee recommends Port Harcourt Polytechnic, Rimuola, Rivers State, and Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic Ikot Osunaa for 2024 TETFund Special Intervention. For the year 2025, the committee recommends Delta State Polytechnic and another polytechnic to be identified

“South-East: The Institute of Management and Technology has been recommended for 2024 and for 2025, Abia State Polytechnic, Aba and Federal Polytechnic, Oko.

“North-East: The committee recommends Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi and Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri for 2024 Intervention and Adamawa State Polytechnic and Tatari Ali Polytechnic for 2025.

“North-West: 2024 Birnin Kebbi, Daura for 2025 Kano State Poly, Sokoto State Poly and North-Central: 2024 Nasarawa and for 2025 Lokoja and Ilorin.

FG threatens to stop funding tertiary institutions with poor performance

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Education

Disclose top 2024 UTME scorers, lawyer tells JAMB

Published

20 hours ago

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May 4, 2024

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Disclose top 2024 UTME scorers, lawyer tells JAMB

An Abuja-based lawyer, Chief Chukwuma Nwachukwu, has taken action against the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for withholding information about the top scorers in the recently released 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results. In response, Nwachukwu has invoked the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) against the examination body.

In a letter addressed to JAMB, Nwachukwu requested to be provided with the names and scores of the top 10 candidates in the 2024 UTME within seven days, as mandated by the FOI Act. He expressed dissatisfaction with JAMB’s decision to withhold this information despite providing a breakdown of candidates’ performance on April 29.

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Specifically addressing the Registrar General of JAMB, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, Nwachukwu demanded: “The names and scores of the 10 best students and their respective performances in the above examination.”

JAMB recently announced that the results of 64,624 candidates were withheld while releasing the results of 1,842,464 candidates. Prof. Oloyede stated that the withheld results were under investigation for verification, procedural investigation, and alleged examination misconduct.

Furthermore, he revealed that 2,896 candidates were under investigation for verification, 4,594 for procedural investigation, and 57,056 for centre-based investigation in 18 centres across Edo, Akwa Ibom, Delta, and Kwara.

Disclose top 2024 UTME scorers, lawyer tells JAMB

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Education

UniAbuja: ASUU declares indefinite strike over disagreement with varsity management

Published

3 days ago

on

May 2, 2024

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UniAbuja: ASUU declares indefinite strike over disagreement with varsity management 

University of Abuja’s branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared an indefinite strike.

The union announced the decision on Thursday during a congress held at the permanent site of the institution.

A communique issued by the varsity’s branch of the union declared the “total and indefinite strike” over a lingering disagreement with the UniAbuja management.

The issues involve ASUU’s interest in a multi-stakeholder microfinance banking venture; promotion procedures in the absence of a governing council, election for faculty deanship, and alleged illegal appointments.

Abubakar Kari, the UniAbuja student affairs dean and ex-convener of ASUU’s national political committee, confirmed the development.

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