Ngige Says He Won't Allow ASUU Go On Another Strike

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has said that he would not allow the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embark on a strike action again.

His comment follows the agreement by the union to shelve its nine-month-long strike action.

Nigige said that the strike action had affected his children, too, and that he would not give the union the "opportunity" to embark on a strike action again.

The union commenced its strike action in March 2020 over the federal government's refusal to honour its vows to the union.

Ngige, on a programme on Channels TV, said that he could have sent his children overseas to study but decided against it.

He said, “I will not give ASUU the opportunity to embark on strike again. I have three biological children that suffered from this imbroglio we find ourselves. I have about 15 people on scholarship in Nigerian universities.

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My three biological children are here in Nigerian universities. They even went to secondary school here. Two of my children are American citizens. I have the option of leaving them to go there and enjoy free education and so on, but I didn’t. I’m committed. I’m a parent, I’m involved.”

Explaining why the past administration signed the agreement with ASUU, Ngige stated that the price of crude oil was between $120 per barrel and $130.

He said, “If you say this government failed to do A or B, that would not be fair. Two reasons: Number 1; if I were part of that government at a time, we will know that this is not doable, but you don’t also blame them. At that time, oil was selling at $120 per barrel to $130 per barrel.

“When it was not good, $100 per barrel with a production of 2.2 million to 2.5 million barrels a day, we were overshooting our OPEC quota, but as soon as this government came in 2015, me and you were here when the price of oil nosedived to, at a point, $27 per barrel. Even during COVID, it went down to $15 per barrel.”

In his response to the question of whether there would be another strike action in the foreseeable future, he said, “We will not get there, because we have structured the agreement in such a way that it is a win-win situation for everybody. For example, the revitalisation, we have given government 31st January to pay that.

“We have also opened the window that by the end of February, we will sit down again and review all these situations.”