The Senate has waded into the industrial dispute between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) as part of moves to stop the ongoing two-week warning strike by the lecturers.
Consequently, the Senate Committees on Labour and Tertiary Institutions and TETFund will be meeting with the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, and the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abdullahi Yusuf Ribadu, on Tuesday next week.
The planned meeting with the Federal Government team and NUC comes after Friday meeting with the leadership of ASUU at the National Assembly.
Speaking with journalists on Friday in Abuja on the resolutions adopted at the end of a closed-door session the joint committee had with the leadership of ASUU, the chairman, Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund, Senator Muntari Dandutse (APC, Katsina South), said that the committees had heard from ASUU and were very ready to address its grievances to the appropriate quarters.
He said, “After meeting with the national leadership of ASUU on the way out of the current strike and the looming indefinite one, we have resolved to convene a very important meeting with relevant government agencies , particularly the Minister of Education and Executive Secretary of NUC on Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
“We also resolved to interface with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Barrister Nyesom Wike, on the need to stop action on tampering with University of Abuja’s land.”
Earlier, before the closed-door meeting, the National President of ASUU, Professor Christopher Piwuna, told the lawmakers that ASUU’s demand for improved funding of the Universities by the federal government as contained in earlier agreements between it and the federal government, was the way out of the strike action.
Sustainable investment in education, according to him, remains the only path to ending strikes and raising the global ranking of Nigerian universities, adding that the ongoing two-week warning strike stemmed from longstanding issues that dates as far back as 2011.
He said, “We engaged the Federal Government for eight years without tangible results. The Yayale Ahmed committee report, submitted in December 2024, was ignored until this industrial action began.”
On funding delays, Prof. Piwuna, who revealed that although the National Assembly approved N150 billion for universities but only N50 billion has been released so far, said that the amount remains stuck at the Ministry of Education, where the minister allegedly intends to share it among universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, despite separate allocations for those institutions.
He cautioned that the N150 billion approved specifically for universities must be used for the intended purpose.
