ASUU To Call Off The Strike As FG Offers ₦65 Billion.

November 20, 2020

It can be recollected that Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been on strike since March 2020 due to disagreement with the Federal Government over the implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) amongst other issues, which the university lecturers said contravenes the policy on autonomy for Nigerian universities. FG and ASUU seem to have reached a concession as the former has agreed to address earned academic allowances and revitalization of universities.

As part of the agreement, the government is also paying an additional N15 billion as revitalization fund which is being demanded by the ASUU in its bid to resolve its disagreement with the union. This is in addition to the sum of N20 billion that was paid previously, bringing the total to N35 billion.

At the end of the seven- hour meeting, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige told reporters that the Accountant-General of the Federation ( AGF) has offered to release N40 billion or in the alternative, N35 billion to be shared by all the registered Trade Unions in the universities after providing necessary evidence of having earned the allowance. These are some of the agreements reached at the resumed meeting between the leadership of ASUU and the federal government team on Friday.

Ngige said the Federal Ministry of Labour and Federal Ministry of Education will review the issue of “no work, no pay” as stipulated in Section 43 of the Trade Disputes Act Cap T8 laws of the federation of Nigeria, 2004 with a view to getting approval for the withheld salaries to be paid, while speaking on the issue of withheld salaries.

“The FG reiterated that her offer of N40 billion or 35 billion whichever is accepted by ASUU was for all the universities unions: ASUU had proposed that N40 billion be paid immediately for all unions ,” the Minister said.