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The Federal Government has appointed the Pro-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Dr Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, as the chairman of the 2009 Federal Government Re-negotiation Committee with university-based staff.
Other members are Olanrewaju Tejuoso, Prof Nora Daduut, Amb Greg Mbadiwe, Prof Ignatius Onimao, Joshua Lidani, and Prof Ayodeji Omole.
The inauguration of the committee, which is the fourth in seven years, took place in Abuja, on Tuesday.
The PUNCH reported on Tuesday that the Federal Government would inaugurate the fourth re-negotiation committee to discuss the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Both ASUU and the Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions gave the Federal Government two and there weeks ultimatum respectively, to pay their withheld salaries and implement their demands.
Some of the ASUU demands included the release of the revitalisation fund for universities; the release of earned allowances for university lecturers, the deployment of the University Transparency Accountability System for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers; an end to the proliferation of universities by government; renegotiation of the ASUU-FGN 2009 agreement among others.
Also, SSANU and NASU are demanding, among other things, the payment of four months’ withheld salaries, improved remuneration, earned allowances, and the implementation of the 2009 agreements with the government.
The Federal Government, through the Ministry of Labour and Employment, invoked the “No Work, No Pay” policy when the four university-based unions embarked on a prolonged strike in 2022.
According to the ASUU National President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, this new committee marked the fourth renegotiation effort since 2017, with previous committees led by Wale Babalakin in 2017, Munzali Jubril in 2020, and Nimi Briggs in 2022.
He added that ASUU would meet the new team next week.
However, a statement signed by General Secretary, NASU, Peters Adeyemi and President, SSANU, Mohammed Ibrahim, lamented that the inauguration event held on Tuesday in Abuja appeared to have been primarily focused on ASUU, with the other unions seemingly included as an afterthought.
The statement said the inauguration speech by the Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman, centred almost entirely on ASUU, with only brief and cursory mentions of the other unions.
It added that at the venue of the inauguration, the two unions (SSANU and NASU) witnessed a most humiliating experience where the President of ASUU was placed on what was referred to as the “Responsibility” table and the presidents of other unions looked on from their positions of “irresponsibility”.
“From the proceedings, it was obvious that NASU and SSANU were only invited as mere spectators to give a semblance of legitimacy and acceptability to an already concluded renegotiation exercise.
“That the President of ASUU alone was invited to give a response on behalf of other unions without consultation and he ended up speaking on behalf of his union clearly showed that the opinions and experiences of other unions do not matter in the renegotiation.
“The proceedings of the entire inauguration have clearly shown the imbalance of relationships and the obvious unfair treatment that would be meted out to NASU and SSANU if the renegotiation process continues in this manner.”
“Consequently, the JAC of NASU and SSANU hereby condemns the entire charade that took place today, in the name of an inauguration, as it signals a potential bias in favour of academic staff in the upcoming negotiations, to the detriment of non-teaching staff and therefore expresses our misgivings about the process of the inauguration,” it read.
