Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari (left), and his Labour Minister, Chris Ngige
Dr Chris Ngige, Nigeria’s Minister of Labour, Employment and Productivity, has declared that the Federal Government of Nigeria led by President Muhammadu Buhari does not have the funds to meet its obligations in the agreement signed with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Ngige said that government was considering a renegotiation of the terms of the agreement with ASUU, in the effort to end the ongoing strike by university lecturers. The minister made this known while appearing on Politics Today, a current affairs programme on Channels Television. When asked if he agreed that the government had failed to fulfill its side of the agreement with ASUU, Ngige said no.
On when the conflict would end, the minister said, “I am hoping that ASUU should do the right thing and contact their members on the renegotiations that we have had in the last two weeks. First, the issue of earned academic allowances, we have agreed, giving a timeline to the NUC to go back to the old template used in working out the 2021 earned academic allowance – 10.8 per cent of personnel cost. “We want them to go back very quickly and use that same formula and get us what we are supposed to pay in 2022. That is agreed by everybody.”
On revitalisation of the universities, Ngige said “the amount is not very clear, what has been paid.” He said the actual amount paid is being determined. On the release of N1.3tn between 2013 and 2018 to revitalise the universities, with N200bn released in 2013 and only N70bn released in the last seven years, the minister, who noted that government is a continuum, stated that the N1.3tn was promised by the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration. According to him, oil was selling at between $100 and $120 per barrel then, while the revenue of the federation was rich.
“The government now says ‘we don’t have the money to pay it.’ This was the agreement between 2016 and 2017,” he said, adding that the government still does not have the funds to fulfil its side of the bargain. Ngige said the government is now calling for renegotiation of the agreement with ASUU, “unless you want us to go and take money from TETFUND and deceive you as it was done in that period, and place it for you on the table.”
