ICent Rex

The hope of many university students across the country to resume academic activities soon may have been dashed. The striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has rejected the offers made to it early this week by the Nigerian government. At the seventh meeting with the leadership of ASUU on Tuesday, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said the labour dispute with the university teachers was on the verge of being resolved. He listed the fresh concessions made by the administration to ASUU. According to Mr Ngige, the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Ministry of Finance presented evidence that N15.4 billion had been released to public universities. On earned academic allowances, he said President Muhammadu Buhari approved N20 billion to offset arrears of the 2009 to 2012 verified earnings by university teachers. But in an exclusive interview with PREMIUM TIMES early Saturday morning, the President of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi, said upo...

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has staged a walkout from the meeting with a federal government delegation. The government delegation was led by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige. The university lecturers embarked on an indefinite strike on November 4, demanding improved funding of universities and implementation of previous agreements with the government. The National President of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi, led the union’s delegation to Monday’s meeting. The ASUU delegation arrived at the ministry at exactly 5:00 p.m. but no member of the federal government delegation was around as at this time. The government delegation led by the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, arrived at exactly 6:00 p.m. The minister of education, Adamu Adamu, was absent at the time the meeting started. Before the walkout and at the start of the meeting, Mr Ngige told the lecturers that he hopes a consensus on most of the issues is reached at the end of the meeting. ...

The Federal Government is expected to hold another emergency meeting with the Academic Staff Union of Universities on Monday in a bid to end the ongoing strike in public universities. The last meeting between the two parties took place on November 15. Despite the meeting lasting for six hours, the strike was not called off because no agreement was reached. Our correspondent learnt on Sunday that today’s meeting would again focus on the issues in the 2017 Memorandum of Action, which the union claimed the Federal Government had neglected. Public universities lecturers began their strike on November 5, saying the Federal Government had failed to implement the key areas of focus contained in the MoA. From a copy of the FG/ASUU 2017 agreement obtained by our correspondent, the issues still under contention are the funding of public universities, earned academic allowances, salary shortfalls and pension matters. The President of ASUU, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, in an interview with our ...

The Nigerian Labour union has said it will not back down on its threat to embark on a nationwide protest over the National minimum wage. The leaders of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Trader Union Congress and the United Labour Congress with their members marched from their NLC office at DLine to the Rivers state Government House to register their protest. Speaking at the gate of the government in Port Harcourt, National Vice President of the United Labour Congress, Igwe Achese said they were at the government House to pass their protest message to Governor Nyesom Wike. “The only thing that can abort this strike is if they agree to our terms. Until that is done, there is no going back. Our message is for Nigerians to begin to stockpile their homes with foodstuff because this strike, when it begins, it will not end until the Government meet our demands,” Achese said. Also speaking, the chairman of the River state council of the NLC, Beatrice Itubo reiterated t...