Fatimah Otunsanya
THE Federal Government said, yesterday, said it has literally met demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, claiming the last strike embarked upon by the union was unjustified.
Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Tunji Alausa, who disclosed this to State House correspondents after meeting behind closed-doors with President Bola Tinubu, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said his visit to the President was to explain where the ministry was with ASUU strike and to extract more concessions from him.
He reiterated the president’s earlier directive that there should be no strike in the nation’s public universities, adding that negotiations were ongoing and that the government was doing all humanly possible to keep students in school.
He said: “As I told you, the president has mandated us that he doesn’t want ASUU to go on strike and we’re doing everything humanly possible to ensure that our students stay in school. The last strike they went on for about six days was not really needed.
“We’re talking to them. We’ve met literally all their requirements. Now we’ve gone back to the negotiation table. We’re talking as I spoke to the leadership this morning.
“We will resolve this. And part of my visit today (yesterday) here is to also explain where we are with the ASUU strike to Mr. President and to extract more concession from him.
“In the education sector, we’re taking advantage of Mr. President because of his love, his fervent and benevolent love for education and human capital.
We’ve seen what’s happening with fuel subsidy, foreign exchange arbitrage is gone. Extensive infrastructure projects going across the country. We have new tax bill. Our GDP is growing the last quarter. GDP is at 4.23 per cent. Nigeria is back to governments.”
On the allegation that the government does not pay much attention to other unions in tertiary institutions, he said the government had a single negotiating committee for all tertiary institutions and denied the existence of any four-week ultimatum from the unions.
He said: “The problem in the past was that even at the Ministry of Education, the problem was created. We had one negotiating committee dealing with universities (ASUU). We had another one dealing with Polytechnics (ASUP), and we had another one dealing with colleges of education (COHESU), and they’re not talking to one another.
“What we’ve done now is to expand one single committee called Alhaji Yayale Ahmed-led Federal Government negotiating committee with tertiary institutions. They’re dealing with both academic and non-academic unions.
As I’m talking to you, they’re talking to polytechnics, the same committee is talking to the polytechnics, talking to the Colleges of Education, as well as ASUU, both academic and non academic union.”
Asked to comment on the four weeks ultimatum by the joint unions in tertiary institutions and the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC on October 20, 2025, for the government to resolve tertiary education crisis, the minister said there was no such ultimatum.
He said: ‘’With all due respect, there is no ultimatum. I still spoke to the President of ASUP yesterday (Monday). I’m on first line call to them. Everything is calm, and they all understand this is a listening government. We would resolve all their problems, resolve significant part of their problems.”
He said the government has addressed key demands such as the payment of arrears, earned academic allowances and other welfare issues.