FG, ASUU Differ Over 2021 Agreement

THE Federal Government and Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have disagreed over the 2021 Agreement, with the latter on Thursday, August 28, criticising the Minister of Education, Tunji Alausa, over his insistence that the government never signed any agreements with the union.
Alausa had clarified on Thursday while addressing journalists in Abuja that the documents often cited by ASUU as binding agreements were never signed, but only merely proposals presented during negotiations.
He, however, stated that the President Bola Tinubu administration was committed to resolving lingering issues with the university lecturers (union)
Recall that earlier this year, the administration released N50billion to off-set earned academic allowances owed university lecturers and staff, but ASUU has consistently demanded clear commitments on improved salaries, conditions of service, university funding, autonomy and a review of laws governing the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).
Alausa stated: “The government side met today (Thursday) at the highest level. I, Minister of State for Education, Minister for Labour and Productivity were all at the meeting. We had the Solicitor General of the Federation.
“The 2021 agreement was not executed by the government. So, I need to be honest and truthful to Nigeria. ASUU might have an impression that they have an agreement with government.
“There was no signed agreement with government. But they’re good people. Polytechnic, College of Education, non-academic staff union are all good people.
“But we now have a responsive government that is being led by President Tinubu and you know this President, once he makes his promises, he fulfills every single promise that is made, and he has mandated us to do the same.
“We’ll have a clean agreement, agreement that is actionable, where every content is actionable, implementable in a sustainable manner.”
He continued: “As I told you, we are going to do this thing once and for all. Previous agreements that had been done with ASUU by the government, the Ministry of Justice was not involved. We want this to be done in a constitutional manner; that every single agreement that we reach with them will be within the context of our constitution.
“The proposal that ASUU has given us, we went line-by-line to discuss, deliberate what the government can afford, what is within the constitutional purview of the federal government. We’ve reviewed all those proposals that he gave to us, line by line.
“We’ve decided on a counter-proposal to them. We now close by setting up a high-level technical team to clean up our proposal, come with a clean document.
“That technical team is being chaired by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, with the following membership- Solicitor General of the Federation; Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Productivity; Chairman of the Salary and Wages Commission; Executive Secretary of the NUC; Executive Secretary of the TETFund; and Director General of the Budget Office, with Director of University of Education as Secretary.
“We’ve mandated them to come back to us with a clean report. We would review this and once we finalise our own proposal to ASUU, we’ll give that proposal, a counter-proposal to the Yayale Ahmed Committee, to take to ASUU and then ASUU would talk and deliberate, and we’ll come back to us.
“We will work as seriously, as quickly and as fast as possible to get an agreement with ASUU. But let me make this point of correction.
“The Solicitor General looked into the agreement. The government has never signed any agreement with ASUU. This was a draft agreement.”
But ASUU President, Prof. Chris Piwuna, stressed that the minister’s position indicated that the Federal Government was still very poor at keeping records.
Piwuna told Punch: “The government is very poor at keeping records. Sometimes, you wonder if there is a proper handover from one officer to another.”