Friday 18 October 2013

ASUU to meet over strike, saysnot under pressure

THE National Strike Coordinating Committee, NSCC, comprising of principal officers and Zonal Coordinators of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU will be meeting Saturday to take stock of the ongoing strike embarked by the union that is entering the fourth months.Meantime, ASUU said that it was not under any pressure to call-off the strike despite what it called sponsored protests and rallies against the union, stressing that before the union decided to embarkon the strike, it holistically took objective assessment of the situation.One of the branch Chairmen of ASUU and member of NSCC who spoke exclusively to Saturday Vanguard on the condition of anonymity said that the meeting willtake place in Ondo state and that there would be a situation report including the meeting representatives of ASUU had with the Federal government last week’s Friday.He said,”We are meeting tomorrow,National Strike Coordinating Committee. Tomorrow is arrival. Our Principal officers and Zonal Coordinators met with government last week Friday, one week today, sowe want to discus the outcome of the meeting, after that we will now meet.”Commenting on the plethora of protests by different groups over the strike which could be mounting pressure on the union to call off thestrike, he said that “There is no pressure on us. We look at things objectively and remember that evenme as I am talking we cannot suspend the strike.“We have to get inputs from the branches that is why our strike is always very tight, because before we declared the strike, we have collected inputs from all branch officers in the universities in Nigeria, we collated it, discussed it extensively for two days before we declared the strike.“And if there is any offer made by government, we have to look at it, that is the principal officers ten of them in number, the zonal coordinators who take over functions of NEC during the strike, so, they will look at what government has offered, brief us the branch chair persons then it is at this point we will now know whether to convene an emergency NEC to look at it holistically.“By the time they are briefing us, they will also ask us to brief our committee members and take the issue to the congress, it is not a oneman show, all these ones they are talking about politics it is not true, the process right from the least of all the lecturers to the highest that is the professor from each branch, we collate all their responses, it is only when they advice us to suspend that we suspend, it is not just one man show.”He explained that during strike situation, the National Strike Coordinating Committee comprising of principal officers andzonal coordinators always take overthe functions of NEC, adding, “everysingle week, the zonal coordinators will take the information to the various branches who will now takethe information to congress, collating information from congress, the branch chairman will take it back to the zonal coordinator, the zonal coordinator takes it back to NSCC, the reason is that NEC has the larger component,we are many.”He said that the reason behind allowing the smaller number of officers to meet during strike situation was to cut cost.“Why NEC cannot meet during the strike is because of cost, we are more in number. In NEC we have over 100 people, but NSCC will be between 10 and 20, so it is manageable, we have a channel of communication.”All attempts made to call the National President of ASUU, Dr. Nasir Fagge failed as he neither picked calls put across his GSM linenor replied the text message sent tohim.

Thursday 17 October 2013

ASUU Strike: Government Blinks, Agrees To Spend N200b Each For Four Years To Bring Nigerian Universities Up To World Standard

Towards ending the ongoing ASUU strike, the Federal Government has committed to spending N200 billionin the 2014 budget on the universities as well as on each of the next three-four years until the universities are brought to world-class standard. This is in addition to the N100 billion dedicated and already made available for 2013.The government has also increased to N40 billion as a first installment, funds for the payment of earned allowances to the striking lecturers, an improvement from the N30 billion previously released.This information is contained in an internal Federal University of Otuoke statement by Professor Bolaji Aluko, its Vice-Chancellor, seen on Wednesday night by SaharaReporters.On the earned allowances, he explained, “Government will top it up with further releases once universities are through with the disbursement of this new figure of N40 million, so Vice-Chancellors areurged to expedite this disbursement within the shortest possible time using guiding templates that have been sent by the CVC,” the circular said.Professor Aluko said the development followed meetings on September 19 and Oct 11 of representatives of the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, led by CVC Chairman, Prof. Hamisu of ATBU and ASUU Representatives led by its President,Dr. N. Fagge with the Vice-Presidentof the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Arc. Namadi. Sambo, Minister of Education Barr. N. Wike and others.Of great interest to stakeholders, Vice-President Sambo, appealing to ASUU to call off the strike, apologized for the "take-it-or-leave-it" comments credited to the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at the onset of the strike. The Minister did not seem tohave been involved in either meeting, perhaps as the government’s way of soothing the feelings of the university teachers.Other points of agreement at the meetings include the following:*.Project Prioritization: Universities will now be allowed to determine their priorities and not be “rail-roaded” into implementing a pre-determined set of projects with respect to the NEEDS assessment. Decisions are not to be centralized.*.TETFund Intervention: Government assured that the operations of the TETFund will notbe impaired, and that the regular TETFund intervention disbursement to Universities will continue, unaffected. So the NEEDS assessment capital outlaysare in addition to regular TETFundintervention.*.Project Monitoring: A new Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) for the NEEDS Assessment intervention for universities has been set up to take over from the Suswan Committee. The new one is under the Federal Ministry of Education and chaired by the Honorable Minister of Education. In addition,to build confidence and ensure faithful implementation and prevent any relapse as before, theVice President will meet quarterly with the IMC to monitor progress.*.Blueprint: ASUU was mandated tosubmit a blue print for revitalizingthe Universities to the Vice President.Prof. Aluko further stated that a signed document will soon be issued to itemize the full issues on which the consensus he had outlined here, as brokered by AVCNU, was reached.