The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan (UI) Chapter has berated the Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige over his role in the protracted strike action embarked upon by the Union, rechristening him as Minister of Dispute escalation and disinformation.
According to the Chairman, UI-ASUU, Professor Ayo Akinwole, the posture of Ngige on the on-going strike and his careless talks has exposed him as someone benefiting from the strike and lacks the leadership qualities to solve problem for his principal.
The Union is reacting to a statement credited to Ngige that ASUU was running away from negotiation table, in which he threatened to drag the Union to industrial Court.
Akinwole accused Ngige of misinforming Nigerians about the reasons for going on strike, stating that ASUU is presently on strike because of the failure of the Buhari Government to honour the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it signed with the Union on February 7, 2019.
Akinwole listed the reasons for ASUU strike to include, payment of revitalisation fund, payment of outstanding balance of the earned academic allowances, proliferation and non-funding of state Universities and the failure of the government to set up visitation panels to federal universities.
ASUU stated that Ngige should ask President Muhammadu Buhari to honour agreements signed with the Union and see if the union would not suspend the on-going strike.
The ASUU leader noted that apart from Ngige’s unguarded utterances on the on-going strike, comments of officials of government to issues affecting majority of Nigerians have been callous and wicked.
Akinwole said ASUU leadership has been holding meetings online via technology and would never run away from any meeting that has clearly set agenda for discussion.
His words, “ASUU did not reject any invitation to attend meeting with government. As a matter of fact, we have been asking government to let us conclude renegotiation since, but people like Ngige seems to benefit more from dispute than when things are normal. Ngige should be educated that taxes are negotiated by each institution with their states and that is what they pay. It is not for federal government to fraudulently remove taxes of gross pay. Taxes are only deducted on basic but the IPPIS fraudulently deducted from gross of our members. Since February, no one has received the pay slip to even know what was deducted. This is fraud of the highest order. IPPIS has broken all existing laws. It is fraud to deduct money from people who have not indicated interest in the National Housing Scheme”.
