The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, has said the Federal Ministry of Finance and National Planning will commence the disbursement of funds to universities on Wednesday.

The minister said the government is certain that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will not embark on the planned strike.

He stated this when he appeared on “Politics Today,” a political programme on Channels Television on Tuesday.

Victor Osodeke, the President of ASUU, on Monday, said the union will embark on another industrial action if the government continued to renege on the 2020 agreement.

The union had accused the federal government of failing to implement the agreement after it called off its nine-month-old strike in December 2020.

Mr Ngige said the government had already fulfilled the payment of the first tranche in January and was about to pay another N22.72 billion earned allowances.

He said the N30 billion revitalisation fund is already in the account of the National University Commission and ready for disbursement to the schools.

“What was agreed last year has been paid. These are subsequent payments that are due. That one has been paid in January February. This is the second tranche we are paying, N22.72 billion for this tranche. The N30 billion for revitalisation is also in the CBN account.”

He said the union is yet to inform his ministry of the planned strike even though he confirmed that he watched the press briefing where ASUU issued the ultimatum.

“Up till now, I have not gotten any communication from them. But that is not to say that I have not seen them addressing press conferences that they have issued an ultimatum. One of the mandates of the ministry is to stem industrial dispute,” he said.

Mr Ngige also downplayed the state of the government own schools, saying “It is not the way it is being painted. I have my children in some of the schools. One of them recently graduated.”

The minister lamented the level of funding of universities, arguing that funding cannot be left in the hands of the government alone. He said in his days as a student, education was not free for all the students.

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Chris Ngige. [PHOTO CREDIT: @NGYouths4Change]
Chris Ngige. [PHOTO CREDIT: @NGYouths4Change]

ASUU strike: FG to disburse N22.72 billion to universities on Wednesday — Ngige
ASUU on Monday announced its plan to embark on another strike in three weeks if the federal government continued to renege on the 2020 agreement with it.
ByBakare Majeed  November 17, 2021 2 min read

The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chris Ngige, says the Federal Ministry of Finance and National Planning will commence the disbursement of funds to universities on Wednesday.

The minister said the government is certain that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will not embark on the planned strike.

He stated this when he appeared on a political programme on Channels Television on Tuesday.

President of ASUU, Victor Osodeke on Monday has said the union will embark on another industrial action if the government continued to renege on the 2020 agreement.

The union accused the federal government of failing to implement the agreement after it called off its nine-month-old strike in December 2020.

Ngige said the government had already fulfilled the payment of the first tranche in January and was about to pay another N22.72 billion earned allowances.

He said the N30 billion revitalisation fund is already in the account of the National University Commission and ready for disbursement to the schools.

“What was agreed last year has been paid. These are subsequent payments that are due. That one has been paid in January February. This is the second tranche we are paying, N22.72 billion for this tranche. The N30 billion for revitalisation is also in the CBN account.”

He said the union is yet to inform his ministry of the planned strike even though he confirmed that he watched the press briefing where ASUU issued the ultimatum.

“Up till now, I have not gotten any communication from them. But that is not to say that I have not seen them addressing press conferences that they have issued an ultimatum. One of the mandates of the ministry is to stem industrial dispute,” he said.

Ngige also downplayed the state of the government own schools, saying “It is not the way it is being painted. I have my children in some of the schools. One of them recently graduated.”

The minister lamented the level of funding of universities, arguing that funding cannot be left in the hands of the government alone. He said in his days as a student, education was not free for all the students.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives on Tuesday resolved to intervene to avert another strike by ASUU.

The resolution was sequel to a motion by Julius Ihonvbere (APC, Edo).

Also, the Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabimaila, called for a meeting to take place at 2pm with the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed and the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu.

The National Mathematical Centre (NMC) has trained no fewer than 50 postgraduate students on geostatistics, to enhance national planning for effective development.

Director/Chief Executive, NMC, Prof. Promise Mebine disclosed this in an interview on Monday.

Represented by Prof. Funmilayo Saporo, Coordinator of Statistics at the Centre, Mebine said that the training would help statisticians to address challenges in the area of spatial statistics.

He said that the Centre had a five-day zoom meeting, which targeted graduate assistants, master’s students and master’s degree holders from universities and other interested lecturers in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

The training, he explained, aimed at exposing young Nigerian scientists’ and researchers to the knowledge of geostatistics in their research work.

According to him, geostatisrics is statistics applied in space and time; it is not like ordinary statistics applied only in locations.

“The training is intended to expose Nigerian scientists to this field because in Nigeria, geostatistics or spatial statistics is not in the syllabus of the National University Commission (NUC).

“So, with this now they will be exposed and they will have greater capability in analysing data that presents itself in that form.

He, therefore, advised Nigerian students to take their work seriously and try their best to always overcome challenges instead of being complacent.

The director, however, identified lack of funds as one of the challenges militating against the centre’s activities, saying that if the centre had enough funds allocated to it, it will carry out its activities more efficiently.

Also speaking, Prof. Audu Isah, Department of Statistics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, said that “Foundation Postgraduate course on geostatistics’’ was designed to acquaint statisticians with the area of spatial statistics.

Isah, who was also the resource person for the programme, further explained that geostatistics could be useful in the area of estimation and prediction.

“Sometimes, we may have scarcity of information; it may become difficult to go to each point to gather information, so information is scarce.

“Then, what we do is to get information from whatever point we can and we use that information to predict what may be happening at other locations that we cannot visit considering special dependence.

“This special area applies virtually in every field of life, you can use it even in econometrics, accounting, pollution and any other field one can think of,’’ he said.

Isah noted that “spatial statistics is an area that is about dying in Nigerian universities.

“So this course will open the eyes of many of our graduates of statistics that want to go into spatial statistics, particularly geostatistics which is an aspect of spatial statistics.

“The programme is designed for graduates from Nigerian universities and polytechnics, who may be interested in further studies.

“It is designed in such a way that participants will gain the basic foundation for further research and studies in geostatistics.

“And those that will be interested in carrying out research will actually be aided by this course,’’ he added.