Details have emerged from Wednesday’s closed-door meeting between representatives of the Federal Government (FG) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Eko Hot Blog reports that the meeting commenced at approximately 4:30 PM at the Education Ministry headquarters in Abuja.
After over two hours of deliberations, both parties agreed to settle their differences peacefully to avoid a strike. The meeting was attended by two Education Ministers, Prof.
Tahir Mamman and Dr. Yusuf Sununu, along with other senior officials representing the government.
ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, informed reporters that discussions had begun with the hope that the government would take action on the agreements reached. “We have discussions on all the issues and we have given assignments to some people to look at and agree on the way forward,” he said.
Regarding the union’s two-week ultimatum, Osodeke stated they would relay the meeting details to their members.
“What is important is that we have started the process and our prayer is that we resolve it in the interest of our young men and the nation. The government has spent one year in office, and today we are having the first formal meeting. We are going to set deadlines and hope the process will continue.”
Prof. Mamman emphasized that consultations would commence immediately to address the lingering challenges in the education sector.
“We’ve had a very good and productive meeting. We’ve discussed progress on how to ensure that the system works well. Lots of the issues we talked about are those we inherited and some that are ongoing. We discussed them all without exception and have a consensus on the way forward.”
Mamman added that further consultations would involve connecting with colleagues in other ministries for information beyond the scope of the Education Ministry.
“The most important thing is that we had a very good meeting and agreed to continue consultations to overcome the problems bedeviling education in Nigeria.”
ASUU had earlier warned of a potential country-wide strike due to the federal government’s failure to fulfill its promises. The union has demanded that the government meet all pending requests within a fortnight.
Key areas of dispute include being dropped from the IPPIS, renegotiating the terms of the 2009 agreement between FGN and ASUU, settling all unpaid Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) backlogs, and addressing all outstanding pay issues, among other matters.
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