Chairman, House of  Representatives Committee on Education, Rep. Farouk Lawal,said last Wednesday that the Federal Government did not do much to avert the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Lawal made the statement when the committee visited the National Universities Commission (NUC) in Abuja, adding that the government had yet to fulfil some aspects of the 2009 agreement with ASUU.

He acknowledged that the issue of funding was tackled through a supplementary budget and amendment of the Education Trust Fund Act to cater for tertiary institutions but other pending issues were not dealt with.

Lawal said when ASUU embarked on a warning strike two months ago, there was a meeting with the executive, particularly with the ministers of labour and education as well as the leadership of ASUU and the National Assembly.

Lawal said that the government and ASUU then signed an agreement that within two months most of the issues in the agreement would be implemented to avert an indefinite strike by the union.

He said that the National Assembly decided to meet some of the legislative requirements to address some of the demands of ASUU and to press on the executive to submit an executive bill.

“When we realised that the executive bill was not forthcoming, I, together with my colleagues in the committee on education, decided to sponsor private member bills on two of the most pressing issues.

“One is an amendment to the University Miscellaneous Act that makes the retirement age for teaching staff to be 70 years and the other one is a bill that would ensure that academic staff of colleges of education and polytechnics retire at the age of 65.

“Now, it is in that respect that I believe that the government did not do much  other than what the National Assembly initiated.

“That is, the introduction of the two legislative bills. It is in respect of this that I believe the momentum by the executive to avert the strike was lost.”

Lawal said that the bills had passed the first and the second reading stages and that the house had committed it to the education committee for final legislative work.

He said the bills would be transmitted to the Senate and finally to the President for assent.

He said that the bills would soon be passed by the House of Representatives and expressed the hope that it would significantly address the issue of legislative action expected of the assembly by ASUU. Earlier,  the Executive Secretary of NUC,  Prof. Julius Okojie, said that the government did not refuse to implement the agreement but had been implementing the union’s demands since 2009.

“There was an agreement signed in 2009 and we have been implementing it. The salary aspect of it has been implemented. The issue of retirement age is now with the National Assembly and on the issue of improved funding, the yearly subvention from the government has taken care of that.

“There has been improved funding through the intervention fund by the Tertiary Education Fund,” he said.

Okojie said some of the union’s demands, such as allowances, were too much and urged it to be considerate.