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Strike: Hope Dashed As ASUU-FG Meeting Ends in Deadlock

by Folarin Kehinde
written by Folarin Kehinde

The meeting between the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the negotiation team of the Federal Government on tuesday ended in a deadlock

The ASUU president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, had on Monday confirmed to Channels Television that the union would meet the Federal Government’s team.

Osodeke had assured Nigerians that the union would call off its strike if the Federal Government presented a decent proposal.

The meeting took place at the National Universities Commission, was headed by the Emeritus Professor, Nimi-Briggs.

“The meeting ended with no end in sight. There were no new matters to discuss”, a highly reliable source within the ASUU NEC told.

When contacted, Osodeke did not immediately reply to inquiries by newsmen.

The spokesperson of the ministry of education, Ben Goong, said the minister would brief the press on Thursday.

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Strike: Hope in Sight As ASUU/FG Resumes Negotiation

by Folarin Kehinde
written by Folarin Kehinde

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is scheduled to meet with Federal Government representatives on Tuesday over its prolonged strike.

President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, who disclosed this on Monday while speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, said the meeting was to discuss one of seven issues ASUU is protesting over.

“That’s the issue of renegotiation,” Osodeke said.

“The renegotiation of the 2009 agreement.

“It’s not just about wages. It has to do with the system, funding, the structure, the autonomy and other issues and how to fund universities.

“The government has reduced it to just salaries alone. But if they had looked at the whole agreement and implemented it, we would not be talking about funding.”

Osodeke also suggested that if Tuesday’s meeting goes well, the strike action may be called off.

“We are willing to sign,” he added.

Recall that ASUU, on February 14, shut down public universities over the inability of the Federal Government to implement previous agreements both parties entered into.

The lecturers’ agitations include funding for the revitalization of public universities, earned academic allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution, promotion arrears and others.

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Strike: Hope in Sight As ASUU/FG Resumes Negotiation

by Folarin Kehinde
written by Folarin Kehinde

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is scheduled to meet with Federal Government representatives on Tuesday over its prolonged strike.

President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, who disclosed this on Monday while speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, said the meeting was to discuss one of seven issues ASUU is protesting over.

“That’s the issue of renegotiation,” Osodeke said.

“The renegotiation of the 2009 agreement.

“It’s not just about wages. It has to do with the system, funding, the structure, the autonomy and other issues and how to fund universities.

“The government has reduced it to just salaries alone. But if they had looked at the whole agreement and implemented it, we would not be talking about funding.”

Osodeke also suggested that if Tuesday’s meeting goes well, the strike action may be called off.

“We are willing to sign,” he added.

Recall that ASUU, on February 14, shut down public universities over the inability of the Federal Government to implement previous agreements both parties entered into.

The lecturers’ agitations include funding for the revitalization of public universities, earned academic allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution, promotion arrears and others.

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Headlines

ASUU Extends Strike by Four Weeks

by Folarin Kehinde
written by Folarin Kehinde

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has announced a four weeks extension of the strike action embarked on by its members since February 2022.

ASUU National Executive Council (NEC) reached this decision at a meeting held on Sunday, which lasted into the early hours of Monday.

ASUU in a statement on Monday said this was following extensive deliberations and taking into cognisance of the government’s past failures to abide by its own timelines in addressing issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA).

ASUU resolved that the strike be rolled over for four weeks to give the government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.

The union resolved that the strike be rolled over for four weeks to give the government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.

“The meeting was called to review developments since NEC’s resolution to extend its roll-over strike action by another 12 weeks with effect from 9th May, 2022,” ASUU said.

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“The NEC meeting took place against the backdrop of government’s obligations as spelt out in the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it signed with ASUU on 23rd December 2020. Specifically, NEC recalled that government’s failure to conclude the process of renegotiating the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, deploy the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), pay outstanding arrears of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), release agreed sum of money for the revitalization of public universities (Federal and States), address proliferation and governance issues in State Universities, settle promotion arrears, release withheld salaries of academics, and pay outstanding third-party deductions led to the initial declaration of the roll-over strike on 14th February, 2022.

NEC viewed with seriousness the recent directive given by the President and Visitor to all Federal Universities that the Minister of Education, in consultation with other government officials, should resolve the lingering crisis and report to him within two weeks. The Union wonders why it had taken five full months and needless muscle-flexing for government to come to the realisation of the need for honest engagement.

“NEC acknowledged the growing understanding of the issues and the groundswell of support for the Union’s principled demand for a globally competitive university education in Nigeria. Nigerian universities must not be reduced to constituency projects that merely exist on paper and our scholars must be incentivised to stay back and do what they know best, here in Nigeria.

NEC appreciated the historic nationwide protest of 26th and 27th July, 2022 organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in collaboration with Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to further create awareness on the antics of the Nigerian ruling class to destroy public education. ASUU renews its commitment to the struggles of NLC in championing the cause of the working and suffering Nigerians.

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ASUU strike: El-Rufai threatened to Sack All Kaduna lecturers

by Folarin Kehinde
written by Folarin Kehinde

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has threatened to sack all the Kaduna State University (KASU) lecturers if they continue to observe the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike.

It would be recalled that ASUU has been on strike since February over the failure of the federal government to meet its demands.

Many attempts by the government to make the lecturers return to the classrooms have not yielded results as of today.

Just on Monday, labour unions commenced solidarity protests in some parts of the country with ASUU.

However, speaking on a radio programme in Kaduna on Wednesday, El-Rufai told the lecturers to return to classrooms in order to avoid having their positions declared vacant, adding that KASU lecturers had no reason to join any strike.

According to him, ASUU had a problem with the federal government, not the state government.

He said, “The Acting Vice Chancellor has assured me that they will resume, but I have asked them to find out if they actually resumed work, because I initially instructed that their salary be stopped. But I was later told they didn’t join the strike, so I asked that it should be investigated and those that collected salary and joined the strike will be asked to refund the salary.

“This is because Nigeria’s law says ‘no work, no pay’. This is the law. So whoever joined the strike will not be paid a salary. We have been telling the KASU lecturers that they have no problem with the State government. ASUU’s problem is with the Federal government. Therefore, why will our staff who have no problems with us join the strike?

“If this continues, I will wake up one day to sack them all, I swear to God. We will sack them all and declare their positions vacant on the pages of newspapers. They once did the same thing and we gave them warning, now they repeated it. I’m only waiting to receive the report from the commissioner for education. I swear to God, we will sack all those that joined the strike if they refuse to resume work.”

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Business

ASUU Strike: 5 profitable Businesses Students Can Start While Waiting

by Folarin Kehinde
written by Folarin Kehinde

Nelson Chukwuezugo, Abuja

Ever wondered how the current ASUU Strike has crippled the nation’s academic activities in our tertiary institutions.

It’s been four months since the academic staff union of universities embarked on another strike on the 14th of February 2022, ever since then, a lot of Undergraduates have been idle with nothing profitable to do.

Many students are now searching for profitable businesses they can engage in to make money while they wait for the federal government to settle the grievances of the academic union.

A lot of business opportunities are available for students to engage in, however, some are either too costly to begin or require specialized skill.

After a lot of research, I have found five businesses Undergraduates can begin with little capital and no special skill. These businesses can make you money in a short while.

1) Mini Importation: Mini importation is the process of buying of a specific product in small to medium quantity, at a cheap price with the aim of selling at a profit.

There are many websites where one can import cheap products from; They include: www.amazon.com, www.alibaba.com, www.1688.com etc

As a mini importer, it is your job to import a highly sought after product sell them to people at a profit.

2) Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate Marketing is a business model that involves selling another persons product a receiving a commission.

It is the job of an affiliate marketer to find business persons with products to sell and help them to advertise and sell those products. The more you sell, the more commission you receive.

Also, affiliate marketing can be done online with platforms like clickbank, jumia, expertnaire etc

3) Rabbit Farming: Meat is consumed in large quantities on a daily basis in Nigeria. It is therefore no surprise that rabbit Farming is a profitable business.

Baby rabbits are easy to source and do not take time to grow. When fed properly, meat rabbits take about 10 weeks to reach a sellable weigh of 5 pounds.
A student can therefore begin to rear rabbits and when they mature, they can be sold in the market at a huge profits.

4) Laundry Business: There are lots of artisans and professionals who are too busy to wash their clothes. They are always happy to outsource their washing to others as it would save them a lot of time and stress.

The student who is idle at home can therefore offer laundry services to those individuals at a fee.

The good thing about this business is that it can be done anywhere and does not require much skill. One just has to know how to properly wash clothes and safeguard the clothes till they dry.

A lot of money can be made from this business depending on how many customers you have. There are some laundromat that charge as much as 500 naira per cloth. The student can charge lower and still be profitable.

5) Popcorn Business: Pop corn can be dubbed Nigerians favorite snack. Demand is high and it is consumed by people of all ages.
The main requirements for starting a popcorn business are: popcorn machine, electricity supply, good location and packaging.
Once you can get these resources, then you are guaranteed to make lots of profits daily.
Also, you can engage in home delivery of the popcorn. This is will surely increase the revenue gotten from the business.

Since the end of the asuu strike is not in sight, the Undergraduates can engage in the businesses above to make money on the side while they continue to wait.

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Headlines

ASUP Joins ASUU, Begins 2-week Warning Strike May 16

by Folarin Kehinde
written by Folarin Kehinde

The Academic Staff Union of the Polytechnics, ASUP, on Wednesday, declared a two-week warning strike starting from Monday, May 16.

The declaration of strike came after the expiration of the one month ultimatum by ASUP to the Federal Government on April 4, which expired on May 4.

Addressing journalists on the status of its engagement with the government, after its emergency National Executive Council, NEC, meeting in Abuja, the President of ASUP, Anderson Ezeibe, said the that the decision to proceed on strike was as a result of the government inability to address their nine points demands.

Read Also: More Worries for Nigerian Students As ASUU Extend Strike till August

Ezeibe called on the public to prevail on the government to do the needful within the two weeks period so as to avoid an indefinite shut down of the sector.

Among the contentious issues are the non-release of the approved revitalisation fund for the sector, non-release of arrears of the new minimum wage, non-release of the reviewed normative instruments for the institution/management and programmes accreditation.

The alleged sustained infractions in implementation of the provisions of the Federal Polytechnics Act as amended, is also an issue.

Other demands include the delay in the appointment of reactors, non-release of the scheme of service for polytechnics, continued victimisation of union officers, among others.

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More Worries for Nigerian Students As ASUU Extend Strike till August

by Folarin Kehinde
written by Folarin Kehinde

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has extended its ongoing strike by three months.

This was announced at the end of the union National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting which held in Abuja on Sunday.

ASUU president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said the union resolved to give the government enough time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.

“After extensive deliberations, noting Government’s failure to live up to its responsibilities and speedily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) within the additional eight-week roll–over strike period declared on 14th March 2022, NEC resolved that the strike be rolled over for twelve weeks to give Government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.”

“The roll-over strike action is with effect from 12.01 a.m. on Monday, 9th May 2022. The National Executive Council (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) held an emergency meeting on Sunday, 8th May 2022 at the Comrade Festus Iyayi National Secretariat, University of Abuja, Abuja,” he said.

The strike started on February 14, 2022, announced a four-week total and comprehensive warning strike following the inability of the union and the Federal Government to reach common ground on the demands of university lecturers.

Some of ASUU’s demands include the release of revitalization funds for universities, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, release of earned allowances for university lecturers, and deployment of the UTAS payment platform for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers.

Following the expiration of the initial four weeks of the warning strike, the union had gone ahead to declare another eight weeks saying that it was giving the government more time to attend to its needs.

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Nigerian Institutions graduates are lazy, unemployable: Prof Pantami

by Leading Reporters
written by Leading Reporters

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, has alleged that most graduates from Nigeria institutions are unemployable and are too dependent on “government jobs.”

He decried the trend among Nigeria graduates chasing government employment rather than venturing into entrepreneurship which gives them the impetus to employ others, thereby bridging the unemployment gap in the country.

“The main challenge is not unemployment,” Mr Pantami stressed. “I am not discarding unemployment, but the major challenge is unemployability, a situation where I cannot be able to do the technical work that my certificate has stored that I have studied.”

Mr Pantami, currently facing the accusation of fraudulent professorship, further accused the youths of being too lazy to start a job on their own.

“As the situation is today, most of our young people after graduating from school are not in any way thinking of entrepreneurship. They are only interested in looking for government employment,” Mr Pantami said of Nigerian youths. “There are many job opportunities in engineering, ICT, oil and gas but most of our youths with (a) certificate if you employ them, you will discover that they will not be able to do the work you have employed them to do.”

The minister stated this at the prize presentation ceremony for the Katsina National Talent Hunt Challenge in Katsina on Tuesday.

“So on (a) daily basis, foreigners are coming to Nigeria to come and do the job for us,” Mr Pantami added. “Most of our technical people are engaged in administrative work, while we rely on other people to come and do the technical job.”

Mr Pantami himself is being accused of academic fraud. The Academic Staff Union of Universities deemed the minister’s appointment by the Federal University of Technology Owerri as a professor as illegal.

“You cannot be a minister and a lecturer in a university. It is an encouragement of illegality,” Mr Osodeke said. “Pantami has to quit as a minister and be tried for doing double jobs within the same federal system. He is not qualified. Pantami should not be treated as a professor.”

In documents seen on the media, Mr Pantami said he accepted the professorship on the instruction of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“This decision is sequel to my briefing to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on Friday, March 26, 2021, and his permission for me to go ahead and share my knowledge and experience in the academia, which is a form of community service to our citizens,” Mr Pantami had defended himself.

Mr Pantami had accepted the position at the Imo-based institution before it had been formally offered to him, based on the reported documents. 

The Islamic cleric accepted the position in March. However, the appointment letter offering the professorship post to Mr Pantami has August 20 as its date.

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ASUU: Strike Looms as FG gets Tuesday Deadline

by Folarin Kehinde
written by Folarin Kehinde

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has expressed its readiness to embark on another round of industrial action following what it called the failure of the Federal Government to implement an agreement signed with the union.

The union is giving the government till month end (Tuesday) to reach out or it will activate the procedure of embarking on strike.

The union’s President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, who disclosed over the weekend added that the FG no longer picked its calls.

It would be recall that in March 2020, ASUU embarked on a strike following its disagreement with the FG over the funding of the universities and the ineffectiveness and discrepancies around the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System and others.

Read Also: Doctors’ Strike: FGs No-work-no-pay Policy is expected – NARD

ASUU, however, developed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution to replace IPPIS and had several meetings with the Ministries of Finance, Education, Labour and Employment, and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation before it was approved but yet to be implemented.

Likewise, the FG and ASUU signed an agreement aimed at resolving some of the demands of ASUU, a development that led to the suspension of the strike on December 24, 2020.

In addition, after a meeting with the FG on August 2, 2021, Osodeke said the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency insisted that UTAS must be re-presented to the end users.

Also, at the meeting, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, assured ASUU that the N22bn earned allowance captured in the 2021 supplementary budget would soon be accessed by university workers.

On the contrary, Osodeke said that the FG had stopped reaching out to ASUU and had failed to implement the agreement reached.

Due to government’s silence over their demands, Osodeke said the union would not hesitate to embark on a fresh strike to protest government’s failure.

He said, “The government has refused to reach out to us. Government officials have stopped. In fact, they don’t take our calls again. Nigerians should tell the government to do what they agreed to do.

“We signed an agreement and even in May, we reached a final agreement; this is August and nothing has been implemented. Does it make any sense? We are giving them till the end of August and after that, we start the procedures.”

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