However, the committee in a statement on Monday said some government officials have been peddling lies in order to set President Muhammadu Buhari against it.
The committee tasked with the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement between the Nigerian government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says the government and its agents have been peddling lies against it.
ASUU had on Monday, February 14, 2022, announced the commencement of strike action due to what it described as a “failure” on the part of the government to meet some of the lingering demands of the union.
The union cited the failure of the government to release revitalisation funds for universities; non-release of earned allowances to lecturers; end of the proliferation of universities by politicians and state governments; refusal to deploy the University Transparency Accountability System for the payment of salaries and allowances of lecturers, and refusal to renegotiate the ASUU-FGN 2009 agreement as reasons for the ongoing strike.
In a bid to resolve the strike and other contentious issues, the government raised a panel led by the Pro-Chancellor, Alex Ekweme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Emeritus Professor Nimi Briggs.
Other members are Pro-Chancellor, Federal University, Wukari, Arc. Lawrence Patrick Ngbale, who represents North East; Pro-Chancellor, Federal University, Birnin Kebbi, Prof. Funmi Togunu-Bickersteth, representing South West and Pro-Chancellor, Federal University, Lokoja, Senator Chris Adighije, representing South East.
Also on the team are Pro-Chancellor, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Prof. Olu Obafemi from North-Central; Pro-Chancellor, Kano State University of Science & Technology, Prof. Zubairu Iliyasu, representing North West; and Pro-Chancellor, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Mathew Seiyefa from South-South.
However, the committee in a statement on Monday said some government officials have been peddling lies in order to set President Muhammadu Buhari against it.
The statement read, “As the Re-Negotiations moved towards its positive climax, preparing for an amicable resolution in a way that will enable government to achieve its intent to restore peace to the University system, certain elements, began to mount a campaign of cynically fabricated falsehood against the critical parties in the Negotiation, namely the leadership and members of the Government team. The Ultimate intent is to instill a deleterious effect on the President's reception of the Report, further deepening the crisis and ultimately damaging the university system.
“Ordinarily, the Negotiating Team has neither the desire nor responsibility to take heed of market noises over its activities as it owes allegiance to its principal the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria through the Minister of Education. These clarifications, not responses, which we are constrained to make, are in order as the fabricators and their media claim that their source of information is the Presidency.
“Moreover, believability of this falsehood may impact negatively on the outcome of government's reactions which will have untoward effect and impact on the central concern of government, the Negotiation process itself and the university system. The criminal fabrications and our rebuttals are as follows:
“a) That the FGN has rejected the Briggs Committee's Report because the Negotiating team gave teaching staff 180% pay increase and gave non-teaching staff 10%.
“Response: We wish to state, in the interest of truth that there is no modicum of truth in this outlandish claim. There was no such allocation formula recommended to government. It is unimaginable that a body with the experience, credibility and knowledge of the calibre of the members of the Committee would commit such a crime. There was no such recommendation. The truth is that the submission made to government recommended a uniform formula for allocating the wages and allowances across the university-based unions
“b) That Finance Ministry sources accused the Briggs Committee of connivance with ASUU to propose an impracticable increase in University wage structure to allot N2million per month to Professors and miserable wages to the non-academic sector.
“Response: There was a normal bargaining process between the Team and the Unions. No such recommendation of a N2million wage for the Professor was made.
“c) That the Presidential Committee on Salaries and Wages alleged that Briggs, Pro-Chancellor of Federal University, Lokoja, still earns wages from the University of Port Harcourt and would benefit from the pay rise to academic staff.”
The committee, however, sai, “Prof. Briggs is not the Pro-Chancellor of the Federal University Lokoja”.
“He is long retired from the University system and does not earn a dime from the University of Port Harcourt. The University of Port Harcourt has come out to debunk that criminal falsehood,” it added.
It further noted that there was a “lie” that “ASUU collaborated with the Committee to exclude the relevant advisory Ministries, Departments and Agencies that were key to the negotiation”
The committee noted in its response, “Capital falsehood. All the relevant agencies of government participated and are participating in the process, undeterred. It is simply absurd and illogical that their exclusion (which never happened) resulted in the alleged lopsided proposal and the recommendation of sky-high and impracticable figures in salaries and allowances.
“All the proposals and recommendations were properly tabled and cleared with our principal. All through the negotiations all the relevant bodies, including Salaries and Wages, Budget, Finance and NITDA were interacted with and represented in the process. For the avoidance of doubt and truthful clarification, no officials of government were driven away. The representative of Labour Ministry was present at every sitting of the negotiation.”
It further said, “That the Briggs Committee took on a holistic, all-encompassing and integrated review of salaries and allowances of the entire educational sector.
“Response: The Team only had a mandate for the review of the conditions of service of the University-based unions, Colleges of Education and Polytechnics are outside the Team's mandate and no contacts were made with them in the process. The recommendation to government already took care of relativity and there could not have been there was no new mandate to the Committee to produce a 'reasonable, practicable wage increase for every worker in the educational sector.
“The figure of N1.1 trillion comes from an imaginative blues as the proposed salaries for academic staff was no way near the said sum.
“The above clarifications are made without reference to the content of the Negotiating Team's Report, which it sent, only, to the President of the country, who set up the Committee in the first place, through the Minister of Education of the Federal Republic All the anti-intellectual forces and agents who have perpetrated this colossal falsehood in order to set Mr. President against the Committee and its Report can only gain transient results as truth is unassailably permanent and enduring and will vindicate the patriotic service that the Committee has rendered in the interest of the survival and sustenance of Higher Education in Nigeria.”