FG, JUSUN / PASAN meeting postponed – Ngige

The federal government’s meeting with the Nigerian Judicial Staff Union (JUSUN) and the Nigerian Parliamentary Staff Association (PASAN) has been postponed.

Labor and Employment Minister Senator Chris Ngige said this when speaking to reporters after union members held a training session from the meeting, scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Tuesday in Abuja.

The Nigerian News Agency (NAN) reports that the meeting between the federal government and the unions was called at the request of the minister, following industrial action by the unions.

Ngige said the meeting was suspended to allow the federal government’s negotiating team to harmonize all issues of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) reached in separate meetings with stakeholders.

“There is no point in rushing to have a meeting that will be unsuccessful.

“The judiciary, the forum of governors and even the presidency are involved in this negotiation because the meeting which was held yesterday took place at the office of the president’s chief of staff.

“The resulting documents are not yet properly harmonized. It will therefore not be fruitful to hold a negotiation where people express themselves from irreconcilable positions.

“It wouldn’t help us and it wouldn’t help the unions either.

“The reason is to ensure that the agreement reached at the end of our meeting here is implemented, with a timetable for implementation.

“So if we don’t have paper ready to be published, then the talk shop will be useless,” Ngige explained.

He noted, however, that union members were impatient even when properly informed that it would not take long he would tour the meeting he was having with the government team.

The minister listed the members of the government team to include the Federation’s Solicitor General Mr. Dayo Apata, the Director General of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Asishana-Bayo Okauru and the President’s Senior Special Assistant, Senator Ita. Enang.

However, he indicated that the meeting would continue on a date to be announced shortly.

“It’s better to do it the right way so that the governors can implement any deal we make.

“Governors hold the ace because they are sovereign in their respective states, although they are sub-national, they run the government of those states,” he said.

The Minister added that the federal government believed in autonomy, but that the greatest patriotism and the greatest tact should be exercised in resolving the issues in dispute.

“Today fund management committees have been proposed and there is also Decree 10. This means that there is a problem and that we have to be very careful not to create more problems instead of solving them” he said.

Speaking to reporters, JUSUN’s national public relations manager Ms Koin Selepreye said the minister was wrong to keep workers for that long, when the invitation sent to them made it clear that the meeting was scheduled for 15 hours.

Selepreye said the union would always be available for meetings, but would not take it when the time set for those meetings was missed.

In addition, PASAN National President Mohammed Usman called the treatment of union members unfair.

Usman said the workers respected the time and would not agree to be held up for a meeting that should be taken seriously given the importance of the issues at stake.

NAN reports that despite the efforts of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labor and Employment, Dr Peter Yarfa and Enang to convince the unions to return to the meeting, they however refused.