The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige has explained that he has done what many cannot do to forestall Industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Ngige also dismissed insinuations that he is responsible for the ongoing strike by the union, stressing that his work was only to pacify and not to implement agreements reached. Speaking during a Silver Bird Television Live Interview Programme, the Minister said he has successfully conciliated 1683 industrial disputes since assumption of office in 2015, and has been taking extra measures beyond his statutory responsibilities, to forestall strike and ensure action is promptly suspended when workers union make it inevitable. The minister insisted that the role of the Minister of Labour is to resolve disputes and does not include the implementation of agreements reached with parties.
He said: “However, when conciliation fails, the minister is under obligation by Section 9 and 14 of the Trade Disputes Act, Cap T8, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, to transmit the results of the negotiation to the Industrial Arbitration Panel (IAP) or National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN).
“In the ongoing ASUU imbroglio, I’m the conciliator. I bring them to negotiate with their employers – the Ministry of Education and the National University Commission as well as Integrated Personnel and Payroll System (IPPS), the office of the Accountant General of the Federation, all under the Ministry of Finance.
“At the end of every negotiation, we put down what everybody has agreed on in writing and add timelines for implementation. There is nothing new about the ASUU strike. It has been a recurrent decimal. In the last 20 years, ASUU has gone on strike 16 times. So, there is nothing new as such.
“What is new, however, is that I have done what Napoleon could not do. You can ask them, the ASUU leadership. I’m sure that in the innermost part of their hearts, they can’t sweep away my untiring efforts. I am the only conciliator lately, who has conciliated and put timelines on agreements and pushed all the parties to implement and stick to the timelines. Such fidelity wasn’t there hitherto.
“Last year alone, based on the timelines I put on the 2020 agreement, they got N92.7b in terms of Revitalisation and Earned Academic/Earned Allowances for the university system. I went out of the schedule of my office to the Ministry of Finance, to the Office of the Accountant General, on occasions, to ensure these monies were paid.
“Yes, I did it. I did the same for doctors and other health professionals operating under JOHESU. I promised in 2015 when the President appointed me that the era when agreements were left to gather dusts were over, and I have maintained it. I work even at odd hours, late night, at times far into morning hours to ensure things work.”
The minister accused ASUU leadership of making reconciliation cumbersome, saying: “Negotiation now is being made impossible by ASUU. For example, ASUU insists that the National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA) should take the payment platform, University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS), that it developed and deploy it for payment in the university whether it is good or bad, whether it failed integrity and vulnerability test or not.
“And ASUU members know that fraud committed on payment platforms can run into billions. If a hacker adds zeros to hundreds, it becomes billions. NITDA brought out the report of its test on UTAS – that it passed the user acceptability but failed vulnerability and integrity tests- the two critical tests that prevent fraud.
