Chris Ngige
Labour & Employment Minister Chris Ngige has pleaded with
striking varsity teachers to show mercy on students by calling off their
strike.
The teachers, under auspices of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU), began a nationwide strike since November, last
year, over some disagreement between the union and the Federal
Government.
Ngige also declared that Federal Government would pay a minimum
wage, adding that things were being worked out by the Committee saddled
with that responsibility.
Ngige spoke yesterday in Awka, Anambra State capital, in a chat
with reporters at the premises of a local radio station, belonging to
the state.
The Federal Government and Labour representatives adjourned their
meeting till today after a five-hour deliberation last Friday. At the
end of the meeting, the minister said substantial progress was made and
that all that is left is a final resolution. Ngige said the problems of
ASUU were not caused by President Muhammadu Buhari, but were bequeathed
to the present administration by the previous governments based on
agreements reached in 2009.
He said: “FG will comfortably pay minimum wage, we want to pay
it, but there must be balancing because figures were bandied and we are
asking Labour to exercise patience.
“I appeal to ASUU and Labour to have mercy on students and be
patient. As far as I’m concerned, we have treated Labour well. And they
should also know I’m a comrade and that is why I always intervened on
matters that concern them.”
Ngige, who narrated how he became Anambra governor in 2003, said
some of the things being faced in governance today were same problems
that he confronted, yet, he paid salaries and piled pensions without
borrowing.
The minister said he was made governor under compulsion, and such
made him to stand his ground when the hurricane invaded Anambra State
then, adding that the rest was now history.
Ngige said: “What Buhari is doing now is what I did in office
as governor in Anambra, which was mainly my offence that brought the
problems. So, Buhari is not the architect of salary issue in Nigeria.”