After Failure To Prevent Crisis, Education Minister Finally Ready To Meet Striking Varsity Workers

The Minister for Education, Adamu Adamu, and the leaders of the aggrieved non-teaching staff unions of Nigerian universities are billed to meet tomorrow over the industrial crisis due to the sharing of earned allowances, EA, released by the Federal Government.

The meeting between Mr. Adamu and the Joint Action Committee of the unions in Abuja on Tuesday, two weeks after the unions wrote the Minister about their grievances, according to an official correspondence seen by CAMPUS REPORTER.

The unions – Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, Non Academic Staff Union, NASU,  and National Association Academic Technologists, NAAT – have been on strike since December, leading to inactivity and disruption of services at various universities.

The EA, a sum of N23 billion, was released to the universities in fulfillment of one of the resolutions reached to address the strike action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.

But the prescribed sharing ratio, 11:89, respectively, between the three non-teaching unions on the one hand and ASUU on the other hand was rejected by the former.

The meeting holding Tuesday, according to the correspondence dated December 15, is aimed at addressing the concerns, including one about inequality, raised by the aggrieved the unions in their letter November 30 to the Minister.

The Minister waited for two weeks, and after eruption of crisis that led to closure of schools, to convene meeting with the aggrieved workers.

However, in the correspondence inviting the unions to the meeting, the Minister sought acceptance of his renewed “renewed assurances and considerations”.