ASUU Strike: FG, ASUU Mum After Another Meeting

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government held a closed-door meeting on Thursday over the nine months strike action by the union and have kept mum on the outcome of the meeting.

The five-hour closed-door meeting, which started about 5:13 pm and ended around 10 p.m was held at the conference hall of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, presided over by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige after it had been postponed twice.

The meeting was expected to lead to the call-off of the strike but apparently ended with representatives of the parties refusing to brief the waiting journalists on its outcome.

Before the meeting started Ngige, said the late start was owing to consultations that were still ongoing by Thursday morning at the Ministry of Finance.

He said, “We on the government side went to consult our stakeholders, and the consultations were still on till this morning. We are starting late because the consultations were on up till this morning at the Federal Ministry of Finance.”

Also speaking, the President of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi, said he shared the minister’s optimism.“As soon as the situation is conducive enough, our members are willing and ready to resume work.”

He said he hoped that the government would come up with something favourable to report back to the union members.

AllNews recalls that the government had, during the November 27 meeting with the union, pledged N40 billion as the earned allowance and N30bn for the revitalisation of the university system, bringing the total payment to N70 billion.

The Federal Government also promised to pay the arrears of salaries to the lecturers, while the union, in turn, pledged to present the offer to its organs and get back to the government on their decision.

READ ALSO: ASUU Should Rethink FG's Offer - PDP Chieftain

However, Ogunyemi later came hard on the government, saying it had failed to fulfill its promises.

But Ngige, in a statement, countered the claims, stating that the union pledged to call off its strike before December 9 after the offers made to it during their meeting.

He also said the government had fulfilled all the pledges made to ASUU.