Details of FG, ASUU meeting that ended in stalemate

By Akon Etumukwa

Hope of reopening universities across the country is not in sight as a meeting between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to resolve the lingering strike action by the union, has ended in a stalemate.

The deadlock is about the second in a series, barely a week after the federal government commenced negotiations with ASUU over its three-week old indefinite strike, which has paralyzed academic activities in universities across the country.

Officials of ASUU and the federal government’s negotiating team led by the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, rose from a three-hour long meeting in Abuja on Monday night with only a promise to further negotiate.

National President of ASUU, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, who acknowledged the failure of both parties to agree, told reporters after the gathering that similar negotiations will continue at a later date.

ASUU ordered its members across the country to embark on strike on November 5, but government authorities showed reluctant to engage the union until last Thursday when both parties met at the Ministry of Labour and Employment headquarters in Abuja.

The union is demanding that the government implements the 2017 Memorandum of Action, which bothered on funding for revitalisation of universities, earned academic allowances, staff schools, pension matters, salary shortfalls, Treasury Single Account exemption and state universities.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education has expressed concern over the development and called on the striking union to call off the industrial action in the interest of Nigerian students.