Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige made
this appeal Thursday while interacting with journalists in his office after
receiving a notification letter of his nomination by Sun Newspaper Publishing
Limited for the award of ‘Public Service Icon 2021’.
Ngige said the Federal Government remained unrelenting in
its efforts towards addressing all the industrial disputes in the university
system, involving ASUU and the other unions.
According to him, everything contained in the December 2020
agreement was religiously executed to the extent that the Federal Government
aggregately paid N92b from the 2021 budget to cover the revitalisation funds
and Earned Academic Allowances/Earned Allowances for non teaching staff.
The minister faulted the demand by the Nigerian Labour
Congress (NLC) for a high-powered panel with requisite mandate to resolve all
the disputes within 21 days, saying the President had already put in place his
own high-powered team, comprising his Chief of Staff, the Ministers of Labour,
Education, Finance, Communication and Digital Economy.
Regarding the renegotiation of conditions of service of the
university lecturers, Ngige maintained that the renegotiation must be guided by
the International Labour Organisation (ILO) principle of ability to pay.
He recalled that the former renegotiation committee headed
by Prof. Jubril Munzali made a proposal of 200 percent rise in emoluments of
university workers, but the Federal Government through the Ministry of Education
said it cannot pay.
He said the university system and the teaching hospitals
consume two thirds of all the emoluments currently paid from the national
budget of the country, meaning that an increase for the lecturers would
occasion upward review of the salaries of allied professionals in the health
sector, based on their different salary structures.
“There is no point giving you percentages on paper that
nobody can pay. Munzali worked out a percentage which placed the university
workers on about 200 percent pay rise. The Federal Government through the
Education Ministry said they cannot pay. The Ministry of Finance said they
cannot pay. They came to me and I said nothing is wrong with renegotiation
because even if a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) is signed, it could be
renegotiated.
“The document produced by Munzali was not signed by both
ASUU and the Federal Government. It is a proposal. Manzali’s committee had
elapsed. The Education Ministry didn’t act as I wanted. The Minister was away
but his luietnants didn’t do anything for five months, contrary to my
expectations. The minister has set up another committee headed by Prof. Nimi
Briggs. They have been working and I have given them six weeks to come up with
a proposal.
On the payment platform for university lecturers, Ngige said
NITDA informed him that UTAS proposed by ASUU passed user acceptability test
but failed integrity and credibility test, which form the bulwark against
hacking.
“NITDA said UTAS failed. ASUU said we didn’t fail. As we
were discussing, ASUU went on strike.In the face of this disagreement between
ASUU and NITDA, we are talking with NITDA to bend backwards so that there will
be a handshake between UTAS and the government certified IPPIS platform. After
embarking on strike, ASUU has gone back to what I proposed to them.
Earlier, the management of the Sun newspaper led by its
Managing Director, Onuoha Ukeh described Ngige as a quintessential public
servant whose contributions to national development started in his days as a
staff of the Ministry of Health where he later retired at the management cadre.
Reflecting on his sojourn in politics, he described him as
“an administrative czar and a nonconformist politician” whose thirty four
months as Governor of Anambra revolutionalized the State.
Ngige, as governor, transformed Awka to a befitting capital
city during his tenure, tarring all the roads in the GRA Awka, dualised Nnamdi
Azikiwe Road and put streetlights. The Agu Awka power station was given a big
60KVA sub-injector station to complement the Nibo Power Station under his
government. He created the Ngozika Housing Estate and introduced reforms in the
civil service
“He was one of the most visible senators of the 7th Senate,
speaking in sup- port of motions and bills in favour of the Nigerian masses. A
notable instance was when an anti-labour bill was smuggled into the Senate by
the executive, as a Private Member Bill, and was almost scaling through to the
third and final reading, he challenged the bill and inspired other senators to
find their voices.”
He noted that as Minister, Ngige re-engineered the Ministry
of Labour and Employment and the agencies under it while achieving peaceful
industrial milieu despite huge national challanges.
“His labour diplomacy enabled the Ministry resolve through
social dialogue, over 1700 industrial disputes while restoring Nigeria to the
governing board of the ILO.
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