Nigerian Government’s Meeting With University Lecturers, ASUU Again Ends In Deadlock

According to SaharaReporters, the meeting between the Nigerian government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) ended without any agreement on Tuesday.

Speaking with journalists at the end of the closed door meeting in Abuja, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, ASUU national president, said negotiations were still ongoing.

He added that his team would report to the members on the government’s proposals and later revert to the government.

But the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said both parties agreed on a lot of things, and that ASUU was expected to “talk to its members, show them the proposal that has been offered by the government so that they can call off the strike.”

He said both parties were yet to reach a concrete decision.

Ngige added although most of ASUU’s demands were being dealt with, the remaining areas were also being addressed.

“Like I told you the last time, a lot of the items have been dealt with extensively and some of them are work in progress,” he said.

ASUU had embarked on a four-week warning strike to press home its demands including the renegotiation of the ASUU/FG 2009 agreement, sustainability of the university autonomy by deploying the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to replace the government’s “imposed” Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

The union has also demanded the release of the reports of visitation panels to federal universities and distortions in salary payment challenges.

Others include funding for revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowance, poor funding of state universities and promotion arrears.