September 08, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has said it has no plans to rescind the ‘No work, No pay’ rule put in place as a penalty for the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, disclosed this while speaking, during a programme on Channels TV on Wednesday night.
A representative of the Education Ministry, on Tuesday, hinted a mounting pressure on the Government to reconsider its ‘No Work, No Pay’ policy or a compromise deal with the striking Varsity lecturers.
But in a response to the appeal, Adamu said, “The Federal Government is not rescinding the no work- no pay decision. The Federal Government has taken the decision that it will not pay whoever goes on strike. If they call the strike off today, they will be losing 7 months of pay.”
When asked if he thought the government’s decision would not worsen the government’s ongoing negations with the lecturers, he said he believed it would be good news to them.
“I’m sure this will be very good news to the lecturers and I think it will serve as motivation to bring them back to the classrooms”, he said.
According to the minister, Nigerians ought to commend the Federal Government for their intervention in the ongoing strike and that citizens could only blame the FG instead of ASUU if it had not done what it was meant to do to end the strike.
“Nigerians should also blame ASUU members and not only the federal government for this prolonged strike. Nigerians should have pushed all the blame to the federal government if they had failed to do what they are supposed to do. But in this case, the federal government has done very well and should be commended for the approach so far”, he said.
Adamu added that the government has made the best possible offer to the striking union, emphasising that no government can meet the demands of any union 100%.
“We can’t do better than our best. Any Nigerian, who is disappointed in the government’s way of handling the issue is probably not informed adequately of the efforts so far. We have made the best offer to satisfy ASUU demands, and you should know that there’s no demand of any union in the world that can be met 100 percent by any government”, he said.
Providing details on the offer made to the union, with regards to the proposed salary increment and the payment platform to be used, in a bid to end the strike, Adamu said, “The agreement we reached or the position of the government that I offered is something government can pay if they say they will agree. There is an increase in salary for university staff, 23.5% for all categories of the workforce in Federal Universities and 35% for professors. The same applies to Polytechnics and Colleges of education. There is another 150 billion for rehabilitation and for earned allowances.
“There is also the issue of the platform to be used for payment of salaries, the president is now waiting for the report of the technical committee set up to look into the three platforms but from what I have seen, the U3PS is probably the best followed by UTAS and then IPPIS. The acceptance of any of the platforms will depend on the report given to the president.”
The Minister explained that the new salary package would be reflected in the 2023 budget and as such, would not be paid immediately.
“The new salary will be in the 2023 budget. It has been captured there, which means it won’t be paid immediately.
“The increment is based on the government’s decision to increase salary. The best idea for any salary increment is to tie it to inflation and for a very long time, there has not been any review and the crisis now probably triggered the government to start with the university people and probably when the economy improves, it will be done across all sectors”, he said.
Adamu also said it is not bad for Nigerians to seek education abroad, but that the onus is on Nigerian varsities to work harder in order to attract foreign students.
“Our people going out to study is not a bad thing. The only thing is that our own universities in Nigeria should work hard to attract foreign students and lecturers, so that instead of money going out, money should come in. Nigerian education is not as bad as the pictures being painted, but it can be better.”
THEWILL reported that lecturers of the Federal Government owned universities had embarked on strike since February 14, 2022, to demand release of revitalisation funds for universities; deployment of the University Transparency Accountability System (UTAS) for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers; release of earned allowances; the release of the white paper report of the visitation panels to universities and other issues involving the ASUU-FGN 2009 agreement;
In a bid to end the strike, the government had set up a negotiation team to look into the Union’s demand.
However, negotiations between the government and the Varsity Union had stalled over backlog salaries. While ASUU insisted on the payment of the backlog salaries of members, the Federal Government on its part, had maintained a policy of ‘No Work, No Pay’.
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