SaharaReporters reported on Tuesday that the government registered the two new academic unions – NAMDA and CONUA.
Prof. Attahiru Jega, a former Chairman of Nigeria’s electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has warned President Muhammadu Buhari’s government about the dangers of registering new unions to counter university striking lecturers.
Jega, during an interview session with Arise TV on Wednesday, said the registration of the National Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA) and the Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA) will make resolving the ongoing disagreement between striking university lecturers and the government difficult to resolve.
SaharaReporters reported on Tuesday that the government registered the two new academic unions – NAMDA and CONUA.
This comes as the government and the main umbrella body of university lecturers, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), have been at loggerheads regarding a 2009 FG/ASUU Agreement on funding university education, which the government has failed to fully implement.
Jega accused the labour and employment minister as the main actor sabotaging the government's efforts to resolve the seven-month-old strike.
He said, "At the end of it, they agreed to an agreement, and now take it to government but the government will say this agreement is unrealistic. Those are the challenges and unfortunately, right now I will say it here because I have the opportunity, the Minister of Labour is not helping the matter.
“He has turned this into a personal quarrel between him and minister of education on one hand, and between himself and Academic Staff Union of Universities on the other. And while many other people are trying to find a way of addressing this situation so that students can go back to school and ASUU can go back to work, he is busy creating challenges.
“He now took the matter to industrial court, ASUU has appealed. And today, he now registered two unions and he is trying to prescribe ASUU. If this is allowed by the government, I think this is a recipe for disaster. It will really create more problems than it can solve on this matter," Jega said.
The former INEC chairman also stated that President Buhari is being misadvised by his ministers on how to resolve the strike.