Pascal Arogorn Ibe
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, has said President Muhammadu Buhari has not contravened any law by reappointing Mr Ahmed Idris as the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF).
Ngige said this on Friday while addressing State House reporters after a meeting with Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Labour unions have been raising concern over the legality of the stay of Idris as AGF, having reached the statutory retirement age of 60 years in November 2020.
President Buhari reappointed Idris as the AGF in June 2019 for a second four-year term in the office.
The minister said the president only exercised his constitutional powers. According to him, Section 171 of the constitution empowers the president to exercise discretion in appointing persons into some extra-ministerial offices, adding that the same constitution spelt out the offices in the category, to which the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation fell.
“The Office of the Accountant General of the Federation is a sensitive position that deals with financial issues, so he feels, and very rightly too, that this is the man that has been there and he is doing a good work and he wants to continue with him,” he said.
Ngige also said that any move by the unions in the university system to go ahead with its planned strike would contravene the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) statute on social dialogue and principles at work.
The Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), as well as the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU), had given a notice of strike expected to start midnight of February 5.
The minister, however, asked the unions to give government three months to forward a supplementary budget to the National Assembly to cover arrears of the minimum wage that had not been paid to them.
He said the government had “apprehended” the strike by engaging on social dialogue with the unions.
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